Monaghan v Tyrone - Sunday 15th June - St Tiernach's Park Clones

[Fuzzman]

I agree TM
We're well capable of beating a lot of sides but we're very lightweight with few definite leaders as yet. Gormley and Justy still our only dependable defenders. Mickey still very unsure of his best team or even style I think
Of course he's right to give young lads their chance but the chopping and changing affects young players confidence and belief. I can maybe name 6 players that should be starters but nobody knows where is their best position. Even big Sean we're still not sure

[BennyHarp]

You are going to have to reign in this new sense of optimism Fuzzman.    I've sort of been saying this for a while now, Mickey is looking at being in Croker in the all Ireland quarter finals in August and whether we win against Monaghan or not is largely irrelevant. He has to manage a squad of young lads who need experience (the McKennas - Emmet, Ryan and even Niall, McNiece, Teirney, R O'Neill etc) who will be getting snippets of game time, and older heads (Gormley, Penrose, Joe, Justy and Stevie) who he knows he needs fit and in form come August. If that means them coming in and out of the team in May / June then I can handle that. We may have the look of an unsettled team at the minute but hopefully by All Ireland Quarter final weekend (however we get there) we will see a more settled team and the team Mickey actually wants on the pitch as his starting 15.

[Redhand Santa]

As I said last week I don't think a back door run is what this team needs. The team needs an ulster title and to be winning high profile games for the younger players to push on. They haven't won anything yet at senior level and an ulster title must be the first target. This is a huge test for them and a potential cracker of a game.

I also think Harte does know his best team but is working players back to fitness. His first 15 would be something like this

Morgan
Mcrory
Justy
Gormley
Mcnabb
Mattie
Harte
Colm
Clarke
Joe mc (possibly mark d for now)
Sean c
Mcginley
R oneill
Coney or Stevie depending on fitness
Mccurry

[BennyHarp]

As I said last week I don't think a back door run is what this team needs. The team needs an ulster title and to be winning high profile games for the younger players to push on. They haven't won anything yet at senior level and an ulster title must be the first target. This is a huge test for them and a potential cracker of a game.

I also think Harte does know his best team but is working players back to fitness. His first 15 would be something like this

Morgan
Mcrory
Justy
Gormley
Mcnabb
Mattie
Harte
Colm
Clarke
Joe mc (possibly mark d for now)
Sean c
Mcginley
R oneill
Coney or Stevie depending on fitness
Mccurry

I agree with a lot of what you are saying but if Tyrone get beaten by Monaghan they go into the qualifiers with 3 tough provincial games behind them, which will be more than any other team in the draw and equal to the amount of games Donegal or Monaghan are likely to get in Ulster. So, they will be no worse off but will have an extra few qualifier games to keep them ticking over. I have no doubt there is no plan to go that route and I would love to see them lift the Ulster title again, however, it won't be the end of the world if they lose here.

[Main Street]

The McManus thing isn't of that much concern,  though Eoin Lennon who's in fine form would be missed,  I suspect we will be stroking the ball over the bar from a string of long range efforts.  If the 15 who play, stay on the pitch, we will win and so far our discipline has been excellent with just one small indiscretion in the div 2 final. Any discipline anxiety  would be around Big Dick, if he starts the game in Lennon's absence and gets up to his usual cynical antics.
But we won't be waiting on McManus to turn up, in fact he's forgotten already.

[nrico2006]

As I said last week I don't think a back door run is what this team needs. The team needs an ulster title and to be winning high profile games for the younger players to push on. They haven't won anything yet at senior level and an ulster title must be the first target. This is a huge test for them and a potential cracker of a game.

I also think Harte does know his best team but is working players back to fitness. His first 15 would be something like this

Morgan
Mcrory
Justy
Gormley
Mcnabb
Mattie
Harte
Colm
Clarke
Joe mc (possibly mark d for now)
Sean c
Mcginley
R oneill
Coney or Stevie depending on fitness
Mccurry

I agree with a lot of what you are saying but if Tyrone get beaten by Monaghan they go into the qualifiers with 3 tough provincial games behind them, which will be more than any other team in the draw and equal to the amount of games Donegal or Monaghan are likely to get in Ulster. So, they will be no worse off but will have an extra few qualifier games to keep them ticking over. I have no doubt there is no plan to go that route and I would love to see them lift the Ulster title again, however, it won't be the end of the world if they lose here.

Tyrone won't get beaten by Monaghan.

[God14]

Fightin talk boys, both main street & nrico bullish about their teams prospects. Great stuff

Mickey Harte has a much stronger pick to choose from when compared to Malachy O'Rourke. Id have Tyrone as Favourites anyhow. Be interesting to see who the bookies make favourites..

[omagh_gael]

Still think we'll take this one. Those two games against Down will have brought us on leaps and bounds. We are getting closer to our strongest 15 and looked more confident on Saturday night. Monaghan will not be easy but I think we hold the edge on the scoring threat from all round the field. We couldn't handle McManus at all in Croker last year so think that could be key to our defence smothering the remaining Monaghan attack.

I think we'll see the same starting 15, barring any injuries.

[WT4E]

I have a feeling Tyrone will handle the next two matches setting up an interesting Ulster final with the Anti Christs of football!!!

[Schkite]

The McManus thing isn't of that much concern,  though Eoin Lennon who's in fine form would be missed,  I suspect we will be stroking the ball over the bar from a string of long range efforts.  If the 15 who play, stay on the pitch, we will win and so far our discipline has been excellent with just one small indiscretion in the div 2 final. Any discipline anxiety  would be around Big Dick, if he starts the game in Lennon's absence and gets up to his usual cynical antics.
But we won't be waiting on McManus to turn up, in fact he's forgotten already.

This is true, we need Lennon fit as midfield is the one area where we have few options at the moment, I'd dread to see Dick line up starting in a game like this. As far as McManus's injury goes, the only good thing about it is how long before the game it happened. So there's been plenty of time to plan without him.

[Fuzzman]

Now that the dust has settled a bit after the last week or so I think it's no harm to look at what all the fuzz fuss was about.

I think it's fair to say most people were VERY unhappy with the team Mickey named for the first game last Sunday. Many actually said it was disrespectful to Down that he named such a bad team but to me I thought that's what Mickey thought would be the team that would be best suited to beat Down. In most people's eyes within Tyrone who knew the players we thought it was a very weak team and couldn't understand why so many new incoming players were named in strange positions where they hadn't played before.
As usual it was discussed a lot on here and some people got irate with others that how could we question Mickey. To me this is a discussion board and whilst it's much harder to pick the team and be the manager we are still entitled to question things on here within reason.

Then when Mickey saw that his team wasn't performing that well he made the changes last Sunday and then he made 5 major changes for the replay. I was glad he did that as I was worried that he was too stubborn to do that but I was WRONG. Thankfully.
The fact remains though that he made a very strange decision to pick those people in those positions and I think there are still a few players there who could be possibly replaced by better players on the sideline. I won't name them however we would probably all chose different teams as we do for every game. I can appreciate Mickey wants to bring in the new lads and give them a chance like BennyH said I think.

I suppose all I wanted to address was that there seemed to be a feeling amongst some posters that we were wrong or OTT to come out questioning Mickey and his choices but to me by making the 5 drastic changes he did show us that he admitted he got it wrong the first day but at least he listened to his backroom staff or maybe himself.
It will be interesting to see from here on in how the team changes or develops.

It's a wee bit worrying already that our FF line which we probably all rate quite highly haven't got many scores from play. You would imagine that v Monaghan, Cavan or Donegal there will be even less space for the forwards to operate in as these teams all use very tight defensive systems. We saw how Derry struggled on Sunday v Donegal.

Ahh how the back door route looks so much easier. What about games away to London, Offaly sorry AZ, Carlow and home to Kerry before meeting Dublin in the annual quarter final game
Relax lads I'm only messing. Yeah front door will get these young lads toughened up and ready for the Southern Softies in August (or next year  )

Down(H) 2.11 to 3.08	Down(A) 0.12 to 3.11
Morgan                     0.1	Morgan   0.3
McCrory	McCrory
McBride	Justy McMahon
Tierney	McNamee
T.McCann	McNabb
Matt Donnelly	Matt Donnelly 0.1
P.Harte             1.0 peno	P.Harte  1.1 peno
Colm Cav	Colm Cav
C.Clarke	C.Clarke
McNeice/Mark Donnelly	E.McKenna
Sean Cav                  0.5 (3f)	Sean Cav
McGinley	McGinley  2.1
McCurry                    1.2(2f)	McCurry  0.2(2f)
N.McKenna	Ronan O'Neill 0.1
K.Coney                    0.3	K.Coney
R McKenna for McCann	S O'Neill for E.McKenna
M O'Neill for Morgan (black card)	Gormley for McNamee
S O'Neill for N McKenna	N McKenna (0-1) for Coney
Justin McMahon for McBride	Penrose for McCurry
C Gormley for Tierney	C McAliskey (0-1) for R O'Neill
M Penrose for McGinley

I hope yer right WT4E. I'd like to Ulster champs again.

[Redhand Santa]

Three of the changes for the second game where to bring in Justy, McNabb and McNamee into defence. Perhaps Mickey didn't feel they were fit enough to start the first day and didn't want to risk players not fully fit so early in the summer.  Perhaps Mark Donnelly picked up an injury and wasn't fit for last week and hence the change there. It's hard to know when your not close enough to the camp. Niall McKenna did well coming on on Saturday night so perhaps it wasn't such a strange call to start him the previous week as maybe he's on a bit of form.

I wasn't happy with the team the first week and questioned it but also appreciate I don't know what exactly is going on in training or who has knocks. But for people to be questioning Harte's position as manager before and after the game was over the top nonsense.

[ONeill]

Some pressure on Monaghan.

[imtommygunn]

Some pressure on Monaghan.

Sure they've no hope. Playing their bogey team. No point turning up.

[EC Unique]

Some pressure on Monaghan.

Sure they've no hope. Playing their bogey team. No point turning up.

Turn up surely. A match is always better than training for Tyrone.