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It is well set up for Derry to spring a surprise.
Derry's poor enough performance against Cork in the last match, drawing with Armagh and Monaghan earlier.
Then Kerry looking very good against Tyrone putting up a very disciplined defensive display.

Kerry know how to win semis and will hardly be underestimating Derry but who knows on the day.
Surely this is Derry's biggest game in the last thirty years (well since last years semi :-)
Donegal won their second title after twenty years so could Derry do it in thirty? ;-)

You would imagine they will have one big performance in them which is what teams have to do to get over the line.
They've already showed their not totally dependent on McGuigan for scores and will have learnt a lot from the last Kerry match where Kerry finally showed their hand.

I think this could be a lot closer than people think and it could come down to how well Clifford is kept quiet again.
When is the last time Derry met Kerry in the championship? Have they never beaten them?
Down, Cavan, Armagh and Monaghan have.

When was the last 2 in a row ulster champion who didn't make an all Ireland final? Tyrone 94 95 got to the final and lost. Did Armagh or Donegal win 2 in a row and failed to push on as well in more recent times?

It's a sign of how weak Ulster is at the minute. In 02/03 Armagh made the final twice. 11/12 Donegal and 17/18 tyrone both saw final appearances.

Ulster had 4/8 Quarter finalists...

Weak though 🙄🙄

First time since 2015 when we had Fermanagh, Monaghan, Donegal and Tyrone.
Kerry beat Tyrone in the semi and lost to Dubs in the final.

Fair play to Derry making it two semifinal appearances in a row. First time retaining Ulster since 1976 where Kerry hammered them in the semi 5.14 to 1.10. All thanks to Wiki.

Is there a feeling of reaching the glass ceiling with Derry now or can they raise their performance to another level which is needed when you get to the last 4?
I'd imagine it will be a very defensively minded game with both teams giving the other the kickouts and packing their defence to make it very hard to score.

Back at the end of the league most of us would have picked Kerry, Dublin, Derry and Galway as our best four teams likely to get to the semis depending on the draw. Many would have given Mayo a good chance as well with Tyrone and Armagh maybe next best depending on the draws they got.

Galway were unlucky with injuries this year and getting caught with Armagh and then Mayo.
Monaghan had a very topsy turvy season losing to Derry and Donegal but beating Tyrone, Kildare and Armagh on penalties.

I think the four teams are worthy of being in the semifinals considering the draw.

As I said on another thread, Dublin and Kerry have always been the two main forces in GAA football and will continue to do so for some time.

Could anyone be arsed with a kerry dublin final if it is that might be a good game but people are going to become disillusioned if they them two keep dominating.

I'm disillusioned myself after the weekend. Far too many awful matches, most games are either very negative like Derry Cork or mismatches like Mayo Dublin etc

Id rather also see Dublin or Kerry not win everything since they have dominated throughout history. I do think the media try to play down how far ahead Dublin and Kerry are to make it seem more interesting. There was huge guff about Galway and Mayo being the favourites this year, well the past week said it all about that.

I think a lot of counties are disillusioned but the facts are that over the last 20 years, only 3 teams have broken the Kerry-Dublin dominance. The 90s had much more variations in different winners but for the most part it's always been a two horse race.

2021 Tyrone
2012 Donegal
2010 Cork
2008 Tyrone
2005 Tyrone
2003 Tyrone

All the chat this year about it being such an open championship looks to be ill founded although Derry & Monaghan might surprise us all.

As a spectacle the game really has gone backwards and as Aaron Kernan remarked on Saturday how he's never seen Kerry fans cheer so much for turnovers before.
Several matches now see all 30 players in the other teams half at times.
If you are a neutral you wouldnt pay in to watch it any more but like the Derry fans are experiencing, when your team is winning with these style of play then you feel it's not that bad to watch.

Beat me to it again ArmaghMike. 

Kerry have always had great footballers over the years and haven't gone too many years barron of a top top player like Clifford, Gooch, Fitzy etc but like you said football skills wont win you an All-Ireland on it's own.
For years it was always the Dubs and Kerry were the main players and then somebody would come along and challenge them like Down in the 60s.

Kerry on Saturday looked like a team very focused with a lot of anger and revenge in their heads, hell bent in showing up these arrogant Northern lot for what they really see them as. O'Connor isn't everyone's cup of tea in Kerry I believe but he certainly knows how to get the job done. The lengths he went to last year to bring in the right people and as you said re-adapt to how the modern game is played now, whether you like it or not.

Kerry knew the early stages of this year meant nothing and losing to Mayo wouldn't define their season, in fact it was a bit like Tyrone losing to Kerry in the league in 21 and creating a false sense of where they were at.

I think they will win the AI this year with quite a bit to spare and believe they have improved from last year.
They showed on Sat that they aren't totally dependent on Clifford and can still put up a big score if he's well marshalled.

Was watching the match with two Armagh mates on Saturday and as a neutral I wasn't sure who I wanted to win (or lose) the most despite the behaviour of most the Armagh fans during and after the Tyrone game.
I was pleased for the Monaghan fans at the end but I did feel for Armagh fans again. As Armaghmike said in his good long post yesterday, yis must be fierce frustrated and in my eyes definitely aren't playing to yer strengths.

R.O'Neill should be your top scorer and the Armagh version of Michael Murphy if ye used him right. He's gone through the season only making bad headlines whereas last year yis were playing a much more attacking style of football and he nearly got an all star.

One point I was making after the game on Sat was, do you not think teams approach extra time in the wrong mindset. Yes I can appreciate they are tired but if you know you dont want to risk penalties should you not just go for the win. How many times have we seen teams in ET just hold the ball and only maybe take on a few shots. It's as if they would rather hold off til penalties.

In general it has been a season for most teams where the fear of losing possession is really ruining the game. Kerry punished Tyrone hugely for it on Sat with so many turnovers. It will be interesting to see does Derry try to hold possession more and play a very low risk game plan.

On another note. The problem with fans drinking before matches has been around for years. Yes it would seem Armagh fans seem to maybe do it in bigger numbers than other fans but I cannot see how you can control it. Lots of them are probably not getting tickets from clubs so maybe they need to be assessed by Gardai or security staff before being allowed in. I suppose for loads of young lads in just a day out on the beer.

Good post rrhf and agree with a lot of that.
It's interesting that both Mickey Harte and D&L both won an AI in their first year.
As Dooher said himself after the 21 final, a lot of that team had been together for a long time before and had got to a final in 2018 and a few semis.
So maybe the new management bounce coupled with experience and a lot of hard work, huge hunger and good teamwork we went from a top four team to winning it outright.
We definitely rode our luck along the way and surprised Kerry that day. We suddenly started scoring goals and benefited from Mayo not playing with a heavy blanket in the final.

Since then though I think a lot of the hunger was satisfied (even the fans backed off a lot) and there was never the same drive or passion that we saw from several players in 2021. That high octane workrate was gone and you could see that on Saturday although part of that was probably playing 3 weeks on the trot which was their own fault again.

I think this group of players feel the achieved what they wanted and it is a HUGE ask to go through that year on year as we saw with so many leaving the panel to either travel or play club football or just live their normal lives.

Every time we have won the AI, Kerry have won it the year after which I think speaks volumes for how much it means to them.
O'Connor went out of his way this time to bring in external men to get the best backroom team possible and they certainly got their defence sorted out last year and again on Saturday. We couldn't get the ball into our FF line at all and they turned us over time and time again like we did to them in 2021. I think a lot of us including a lot of media pundits believed the hype that Tyrone get under Kerry's skin and we raise our game massively. Well we didn't do that on Sat and haven't really done it all year.

I think Kerry and Dublin are at a different level and we did get there in 2021 but we've fallen badly back down again.
I would have been happy enough getting to a semi this year but alas we met an angry hurt team that owed us one and put us back in our place. As someone said they have won 4 of the last 5 championship meetings so maybe we need to realise that we're not their bogey team any more.

The main thing that disappointed me about this year was the lack of direction or system we seemed to play. It often seemed very sporadic and the lack of long high ball into the FF line even though we rotated the big men in there. The future looks hopeful with the Canavans, Dazza there a while more, hopefully McShane coming back to some form, McGleenan, Cush and the other U20 lads getting more chances.

Take Clifford out of that Kerry side and they're ordinary. Very ordinary.

Any suggestions how?
Red card?

2023 Team v Kerry
Morgan           
McKernan
McNamee
Hampsey
C Quinn
Michael o neill
Harte
Kennedy
Kilpatrick
Meyler
R Canavan
McGeary
McCurry
Donnelly
D Canavan

AI final team 2021
Morgan
McKernan
McNamee
Hampsey
Burns
Harte
McGeary
Kennedy
Kilpatrick
Meyler
Michael o'Neill
Sludden
McCurry
M.Donnelly
McKenna

Would yis say our starting 15 is stronger or weaker than 2021?
Sludden, McKenna and Burns the 3 men not starting this weekend.

I think we've better scoring forwards now although we will miss McKenna ball winning ability to create havoc and score goals.
Hopefully McGeary can get his confidence back and kick a score or two like he used to.

Are Kerry stronger this year than they were in 2021? As many have said we struggled at MF against them in 2021 but we would appear to be stronger there this year.

Most people seem happy with the outcome of how we have reached the last 8.
Maybe hard for Roscommon and Galway to be knocked out after a good year up until now and maybe Kildare too.
Had Westmeath have beaten Tyrone I might not be writing this. 

Cork are probably the biggest surprise packets to make it through this year but no surprise to see Armagh and Monaghan make it to the last 8.

I think the new system is good for most teams to get to play regular matches rather than training so much and having to play friendlies. It also allows the "bigger teams" to maybe bring on newer players or try different things that would be harder if there was more jeopardy.

We do need to lower our expectations though for good attendance as many fans, especially families will find it vey costly going to so many matches. I did wonder was there an element of some teams doing the bare minimum to get through and not wanting to show their hand too much. Kerry and Tyrone prime examples perhaps.

The four teams who finished last in their groups got lots of good experience against teams they wouldn't usually meet and I think the preliminary quarterfinal round actually did work out well this year as it added a knockout round and kept the group stages interesting to the last day.

Interestingly 5 of the 8 division 1 teams made it the the last 8 and Derry, Dublin and Cork from div 2. That seems pretty fair to me as opposed to the provincial system.

Yeah depends on who gets through but because there are a lot of ties that can't happen again then there are very likely semi final matchings.
If Derry and Tyrone win then they have to meet each other in the semi as neither can meet Armagh or Monaghan so the winners of Dubs v Mayo have to meet them.

If Derry, Kerry and the Dubs win then Derry could meet either Kerry or Dubs but not Armagh/Monaghan and this is why Derry fans will be supporting Tyrone on Saturday. 

If Derry, Kerry and Mayo win then Kerry can't play Mayo again and Derry can't play Armagh/Monaghan so it will have to be Derry v Mayo/Kerry and Mayo/Kerry v Armagh/Monaghan.

So it looks like Derry will probably be meeting Kerry or the Dubs/Mayo in the semi final.
Sorry Cork fans but if ye get through then ye can't meet Kerry or Mayo.

Big prize for the winner with the easier tie v Derry in the semi, should they get past a very improved Cork team.
It will be interesting to see how both managers approach this game tactically especially around restarts and do the play a running game.

Clifford often wins a lot of marks so you'd imagine Kerry will kick the ball a lot more or will they learn from the traps set for them the last time?

Will Tyrone push up on the Kerry kickouts?
Will Morgan go short if Kerry back off?

Sludden and McGeary were very active on the scoreboard back in '21. Often getting 2 or 3 points each but that has fallen away this year. Also think Petey doesn't seem to be shooting as much as he used to either.
McKernan seems to find himself up front quite a lot in games and has good feet.
Talking of Petey and that great run and shot v Armagh where he hit the post.
I'm surprised we don't try that more often. Remember C.Quinn got a lovely goal this year.
Darragh like his dad, is very good at making clever runs off the ball and if he had more off the ball runners he would have a lot more options.

As I said before, I wish we had more forwards on the sub bench. Imagine having Bradley to come in for last 20 mins.

Really enjoyed listening to the GAA hour interview with Stevie O'Neill. What a player he was. Amazing to hear he had totally stopped playing club football and was only doing a bit of cycling before he made the comeback that time. Still knocking around with the Masters team now. You'd still pay to watch him!

He did start playing with the club again and got back into great form and that's why he was asked to come back for the county. Did you know he wouldn't accept his winners medal that year? Very humble guy.

When was the last time Monaghan won in Croker in the championship?
What about Armagh?