Tyrone v Dublin - The return of the Jedi

[omagh_gael]

An absolute disgrace, the GAA should acknowledge this and tackle the issue immediately. Saw this on Twitter earlier. Four tickets in lower Hogan for €1415, FFS!

https://twitter.com/stephen88ty/status/895298733231022080?s=09

[Zulu]

Dispelling the Defensive Tyrone Myth

Especially for Zulu, who'd rather see us adopt a "high-risk passing strategy", apparently, and probably uniquely in global sport, ie, being reckless with ball possession!  

Ah Fear, if you're using Conan Doherty to support you're argument then you're lost! Besides he's little diagrams show 14 Tyrone men in their own half when the other team have the ball, if that's not excessively defensive I don't know what is. If you Tyrone men enjoy seeing 14 men in their own half while their opponents hand pass it around trying to break it down and when turned over Tyrone run forward doing a hand passing drill more power to you!! A fast hand passing move can be great to watch but if that's all you have it gets boring very quick, especially when you have so many men back your opponents can't kick it either.

I might be proved wrong but I strongly suspect Tyrone have racked up big scores due the weakness of their opponents more than their own strength. Tyrone are certainly a fine team with a number of exceptional players but Dublin won't be turned over as easily as your opponents to date and they won't be torn wide open for easy scores on the break. I expect Tyrone to suffer the fate of every team that played too defensively against Dublin in the past few years. The only teams to beat or really threaten to beat Dublin in the past few years were Kerry and Mayo who played far more conventionally than Tyrone do.

[randomusername]

Dispelling the Defensive Tyrone Myth

Especially for Zulu, who'd rather see us adopt a "high-risk passing strategy", apparently, and probably uniquely in global sport, ie, being reckless with ball possession!  

Ah Fear, if you're using Conan Doherty to support you're argument then you're lost! Besides he's little diagrams show 14 Tyrone men in their own half when the other team have the ball, if that's not excessively defensive I don't know what is. If you Tyrone men enjoy seeing 14 men in their own half while their opponents hand pass it around trying to break it down and when turned over Tyrone run forward doing a hand passing drill more power to you!! A fast hand passing move can be great to watch but if that's all you have it gets boring very quick, especially when you have so many men back your opponents can't kick it either.

I might be proved wrong but I strongly suspect Tyrone have racked up big scores due the weakness of their opponents more than their own strength. Tyrone are certainly a fine team with a number of exceptional players but Dublin won't be turned over as easily as your opponents to date and they won't be torn wide open for easy scores on the break. I expect Tyrone to suffer the fate of every team that played too defensively against Dublin in the past few years. The only teams to beat or really threaten to beat Dublin in the past few years were Kerry and Mayo who played far more conventionally than Tyrone do.

Tyrone have generally been kicking the ball a bit more this year, in fairness. Not as often against Armagh though.

[twohands!!!]

This is a map of where Derry, Donegal and Down had shots from play versus Tyrone in the first half of championship games this year according to Dont Foul.

A total of 28 shots from play with 9 being converted (that's in 105 minutes of play)

It's not as if Tyrone were relying on fouls all that much because the opposition only scored 0-6 from deadballs across these three halves.



These are the stats from half-time in the Armagh Tyrone game.

Armagh had scored 0-4 in the first half with 0-2 coming from play and 0-2 coming from deadballs.
Armagh had 10 scoring chances from play converting just 2 of them.
Tyrone conceded 4 frees (I'm not sure how many of these were scoreable frees but Armagh did get a return of 0-2) from them.

If you add Armagh's 10 scoring chances from play to Don't Fouls figures from the graphic above it goes from 28 shots with 9 converted to 38 shots with 11 converted over 140 minutes of football.

Over the 4 games Tyrone have played in the championship this year, their defensive performance in the first half has been freakishly identical.

Derry 0-5
Down 0-5
Donegal 0-5
Armagh 0-4

A key part of their defensive performances in the first half is keeping the scores conceded from deadballs as low as possible.

The following is what Tyrone's opposition scored from deadballs (including 45s)  in these 4 first halves.

Derry 0-3
Down 0-1
Donegal 0-2
Armagh 0-2

The following is what Tyrone's opposition scored from play in these 4 first halves.

Derry 0-2
Down 0-4
Donegal 0-3
Armagh 0-3

This is just phenomenally impressive defending.

They did give up some goal chances in these halves - McHugh had a chance for Donegal and O'Hanlon had a chance for Derry [neither of them even hit the target] , there might be one or two others but I'm struggling to recall them.

Obviously defending is only part of the equation, it all counts for naught if you don't get scores at the other end. So far Tyrone have been managing the transition from defence to attack and getting scores well.

The big question is how close they can come to replicating this sort of defensive performance against Dublin, and whether they can do it without weakening their attack.

[Zulu]

I haven't seen a huge amount of Tyrone so maybe I've caught their worst games! While I really don't like teams getting too many bodies back (far too common in the modern game) as it's brutal for the spectacle, my main gripe is that it isn't successful. I think Tyrone would have beaten any team they played thus far playing pretty much any system they wanted to. However, the massed defence, while still effective, is being broken down by the best teams by holding possession and probing which is awful to watch. I hope I'm wrong and Dublin/Tyrone is the monster game we all hope it will be but I fear it will be a terrible spectacle.

[Gaffer]

There were online queues for tickets for the Armagh game when they first went on sale  as well.

A guy was tellng me he sat for an hour before he gave up......More fool him

There were loads of tickets available online  on the Thursday and Friday lesding up  to the game and not bad ones either. I ll be picking mine up online on The Friday before the game and i ll not be sitting in any queue!!!

[omagh_gael]

Nice post Twohands. The O'Hanlon goal chance came from a lot shot thst hit the post and fell very kindly for the down player to lay off to O'Hanlon. That wasn't really a case of the system being broken down. My big worry is McHugh's chance, this came about following Colly Cavanagh making an uncharacteristic mistake missing a high ball in defence which allowed Murphy to play Ryan through on goal.

Dublin will be looking to bypass the screen as quickly as possible I feel and it wouldn't surprise me to see O'Gara replace Andrews in the FF to win long , early ball.

Going to be a fascinating encounter.

[Redhand Santa]

There were online queues for tickets for the Armagh game when they first went on sale  as well.

A guy was tellng me he sat for an hour before he gave up......More fool him

There were loads of tickets available online  on the Thursday and Friday lesding up  to the game and not bad ones either. I ll be picking mine up online on The Friday before the game and i ll not be sitting in any queue!!!

The semi final involving Dublin usually involves higher demand than the quarter finals. I don't think many tickets became available for Kerry game late last year. I'd say there will be another online allocation but it might not last long.

[RedHand88]

There were online queues for tickets for the Armagh game when they first went on sale  as well.

A guy was tellng me he sat for an hour before he gave up......More fool him

There were loads of tickets available online  on the Thursday and Friday lesding up  to the game and not bad ones either. I ll be picking mine up online on The Friday before the game and i ll not be sitting in any queue!!!

Good luck with that.

[bigloudmouth]

Guaranteed borefest - both teams will defend deep when not in possession, walk the ball to halfway after it has been kicked wide, hand pass or kick short ad nausea as they probe for space - dubs 2 minute soccer style build up to McCarthys point - and repeat over and over with occasional turnovers leading to brief instances of high intensity play - very brief!! Then the final 7-10 mins will see both of them decide to try and go for it!!
And based on league positions at start of year Tyrone have had a harder run to this stage - derry, div2, donegal div1, down div2, Armagh div3..
Versus Dublin - Carlow div4, w-Meath div4, Kildare div2 and Monaghan div1 - so how good are Dublin?

[INDIANA]

Guaranteed borefest - both teams will defend deep when not in possession, walk the ball to halfway after it has been kicked wide, hand pass or kick short ad nausea as they probe for space - dubs 2 minute soccer style build up to McCarthys point - and repeat over and over with occasional turnovers leading to brief instances of high intensity play - very brief!! Then the final 7-10 mins will see both of them decide to try and go for it!!
And based on league positions at start of year Tyrone have had a harder run to this stage - derry, div2, donegal div1, down div2, Armagh div3..
Versus Dublin - Carlow div4, w-Meath div4, Kildare div2 and Monaghan div1 - so how good are Dublin?

Double all Ireland champions that's how good . Our pedigree is proven - yours isn't .
Tyrone have played nobody yet . Building a fine team but Dublin won't allow Tyrone space on the counter attack

[seafoid]

Guaranteed borefest - both teams will defend deep when not in possession, walk the ball to halfway after it has been kicked wide, hand pass or kick short ad nausea as they probe for space - dubs 2 minute soccer style build up to McCarthys point - and repeat over and over with occasional turnovers leading to brief instances of high intensity play - very brief!! Then the final 7-10 mins will see both of them decide to try and go for it!!
And based on league positions at start of year Tyrone have had a harder run to this stage - derry, div2, donegal div1, down div2, Armagh div3..
Versus Dublin - Carlow div4, w-Meath div4, Kildare div2 and Monaghan div1 - so how good are Dublin?

There should be a mandated release of the ball to the other side after 5 phases that go nowhere
Fuball could learn a lot from other sports

[Fuzzman]

There is great excitement among gaa fans here in Dublin with everyone intrigued and excited by the upcoming game. Most of the Dubs I've been talking to are looking forward to the challenge that Tyrone present as they feel they have dealt with everything Kerry and Mayo have thrown at them the last few years.

A lot of pundits and ex players etc have said that Dublin don't do well against a well organised defensive system that can break at speed and so this is why many are so interested in how this game pans out. If they win this game and go on to win their 3 in a row then there will be no doubt this is the best team of this era.

For those who don't like the Tyrone (and Donegal) style of football, I can understand why some might say it's negative and ugly to watch and it is quite likely Dublin will no longer kick the ball into their FF line for this game as they know it will be just giving away possession. However, if you look back over the years, when a team is very dominant then another team has to try to do something different to beat that style.
Back in 2003 in the semifinal everyone was expecting the Tyrone v Kerry game to be a great open game of football with two attack minded teams, however Mickey Harte knew his team had to do something different to get them over the line. Many neutrals complain about how Donegal brought the game to a new low back in 2011 but they did what it took to get them to come from nowhere to win a Sam Maguire.
Others from Mayo, Rosscommon, Meath, Cork and many more sit and complain but sometimes you gotta go where you don't want to go to get over the line.

I found it fascinating watching Whelan, who seems to have been held in reserve all year by TSG until these big games, analyse how Tyrone and Dublin play and he seems wary of how Dublin should not be tricked by Tyrone into their trap of pushing up and allowing them to break at speed. He more or less recommended that each team give each other the kick-outs so that the long kick out over the top doesn't leave them to exposed.

I foresee a very cagey tactical battle with neither team wanting to reveal their hand until the cavalry come on in the final 20 minutes. I expect O'Gara to be used in the first half as a decoy target man so he can maybe win the odd high ball and cause some panic and maybe get a few of our defenders ruffled and yellow carded.
I can see it a bit like the Ulster final last year where nobody will want to be too adventurous and both will hope to pick off long range scores to keep the scoreboard ticking over.
Dublin did this very well in the first half v Donegal in 2014 and I thought Dublin could win easy but when the first goal went in and the long range shots starting going wide then Dublin became fearful.

I think most Tyrone fans (with some wit) think they have a good chance to win but if Dublin click and can take their long range scores then we will come up short. Tyrone to tend to let teams shoot from outside the normal shooting range and just clog up that middle area and if they can continue to NOT give away many frees I think we have a great chance. The referee will have a huge influence on the game though and I'd fear the home crowd will influence him as they normally do but we can't control that.

Connolly no doubt will come in somewhere in the second half, whether they are losing by 5 or winning by 10 and he will get a huge welcome that will lift the whole team. It will be interesting to see what Mickey will have planned for this. I'd imagine some sort of a distraction to take away from that happening.

The wife and kids arrive home tomorrow from France and I have the red and white bunting up to welcome them. My Mayo and Kerry neighbours love it

[Taylor]

Good analysis as always FM however I would not be as optimistic as you.

Given the space we normally allow the opposition to shot from distance I actually think Dermo will start and last to 50 odd mins.

At that stage if the Dubs are in front we will have to come out and play more which will leave space for OGara to come in and become a focal point of the long early ball into the space that Collie will have to vacate as we chase the game.

The winning & losing of this game will be IF the Dubs are in front as we come down the home stretch

[TheGreatest]

Fuzzman, good post, agree with all of it. Just re Whelan, he was very ill for awhile over the summer and that's why he wasn't on the Sunday game.