Tír Eoghain vs Muineachán, Omagh, Saturday 4th March @19:00 (water permitting)

[Taylor]

Fuzzman, I agree that we need to take chances when the game is slipping away from us but it seems ingrained into the players heads to retreat.
Now would be the time to try a more attacking formation.
Our defence is rock solid as we all know - fine tune a few things and it could be a glorious Summer again.

Playing that full forward line would be a waste given the blanket defences we expect to face during the Summer. Not much they can do when they win the ball with the flurry of players around them.

[Fuzzman]

Playing anyone in at FF is a waste these days and is why you often see Sean, McCurry, O'Neill and more recently McShane come out to our 40 to get a ball with a bit of room to shoot.

I'm saying with those 3 named there and then they can move out and in as the game goes on. Bradley buzzing around  Sean or Mattie could fed off them. Too often on Sat Mattie won the ball but had nobody near him to lay it off to.

[BennyHarp]

Win our match in hand this Sunday and we're top of Div 1.
Many will say it's only March and it's a long way to Sept but a lot of counties would happily swap with us.

Mickey has us doing well and I think the majority of sensible fans would be happy for him to get another few years with this new team as he's got the experience whereas new managers like Logan, McGlennan etc would be on a step learning curve.

Re. Sat night and how we sat back in the second half I see Mickey's interview on teamtalkmag.com said that they were right not to run into the "nest of tackles" but to be patient and try to entice the Monaghan defence out.
He said it might not be pretty and what people want to see but it's what necessary nowadays to win matches.

Personally I think there needs to be a more balance between our excellent defensive system and how when we attack. What I mean is say we're playing one of the top 3 teams and we're 3 points down, will we change our shape and take a risk to push men forward. It is so ingrained in the players now to retreat back into their own half all the time.

I think with the large number of half back and half forwards we have at similar levels that we could afford to play a FF line of Mattie, Sean & Bradley though as Mattie found out on Sat night that even when you win a long ball in there, you can't do much with it as you're surrounded in seconds.
I think we'll see more of that pass where it's kicked into the FF line and it's then kicked back about 30 yards where there is more space to shoot.

Has Munroe got injured or dropped down the pecking order?
At the start of the league most people expected him to nail down a wing back position but has he played any part yet?
Also Mc Nulty was named at MF for a few games and still hasn't got on.
Was McClure even on the panel last year?

The problem is that this "patient" attacking play becomes so ingrained that it is the go to method when the pressure is applied in big matches. How many times last year did we pass the ball around and need a heroic score to pull us out, granted it worked in the Ulster Final but didn't work v Mayo! I have this abiding memory of the Mayo game of Colm Cav roaring at his team mates to push up as we slowly funneled the ball around midfield. The frustrating thing is that Mickey has developed a style that can be very effective as displayed in the first half on Saturday and at times last year, attacking at pace with the odd longer ball. We need to be able to vary our attacks a lot more to keep the opposition guessing as the second half approach on Saturday night is food and drink to the better sides and won't win us big games.

[bigpackiechestout]

Win our match in hand this Sunday and we're top of Div 1.
Many will say it's only March and it's a long way to Sept but a lot of counties would happily swap with us.

Mickey has us doing well and I think the majority of sensible fans would be happy for him to get another few years with this new team as he's got the experience whereas new managers like Logan, McGlennan etc would be on a step learning curve.

Re. Sat night and how we sat back in the second half I see Mickey's interview on teamtalkmag.com said that they were right not to run into the "nest of tackles" but to be patient and try to entice the Monaghan defence out.
He said it might not be pretty and what people want to see but it's what necessary nowadays to win matches.

Personally I think there needs to be a more balance between our excellent defensive system and how when we attack. What I mean is say we're playing one of the top 3 teams and we're 3 points down, will we change our shape and take a risk to push men forward. It is so ingrained in the players now to retreat back into their own half all the time.

I think with the large number of half back and half forwards we have at similar levels that we could afford to play a FF line of Mattie, Sean & Bradley though as Mattie found out on Sat night that even when you win a long ball in there, you can't do much with it as you're surrounded in seconds.
I think we'll see more of that pass where it's kicked into the FF line and it's then kicked back about 30 yards where there is more space to shoot.

Has Munroe got injured or dropped down the pecking order?
At the start of the league most people expected him to nail down a wing back position but has he played any part yet?
Also Mc Nulty was named at MF for a few games and still hasn't got on.
Was McClure even on the panel last year?

The problem is that this "patient" attacking play becomes so ingrained that it is the go to method when the pressure is applied in big matches. How many times last year did we pass the ball around and need a heroic score to pull us out, granted it worked in the Ulster Final but didn't work v Mayo! I have this abiding memory of the Mayo game of Colm Cav roaring at his team mates to push up as we slowly funneled the ball around midfield. The frustrating thing is that Mickey has developed a style that can be very effective as displayed in the first half on Saturday and at times last year, attacking at pace with the odd longer ball. We need to be able to vary our attacks a lot more to keep the opposition guessing as the second half approach on Saturday night is food and drink to the better sides and won't win us big games.

We were very effective in the first half on Saturday but I'd worry about how sustainable that kind of performance is. An awful lot of our first half points were long distance efforts (think McCann's 2 efforts, Burns, Meyler and Peter Harte's points). Whilst it would be great to think we could go out and do this every day the evidence over the past few years shows that this kind of accuracy is impossible to sustain for any team - it almost reminded my of Dublin v Donegal in 2014 when Flynn and Connolly shot the lights out in the first half, each nailing 2 or 3 efforts from outside the 45, and the shooting then deteriorated in the second half.

I worry that we often struggle to create easy scoring chances against packed defences (the fact that we are not reliable from free kicks from 35 yards+ doesn't help), and sure enough we reverted to type in the second half. Bar Cavanagh the only man who seemed capable of breaking in to a proper scoring position was McShane who as per usual kicked a couple of bad misses.

This was our problem against Mayo last year when we were relying on potshots from distance from McCarron, McCann and a Morgan free kick to try get the equaliser before Mayo gifted McCurry his chance.

[Il Bomber Destro]

Win our match in hand this Sunday and we're top of Div 1.
Many will say it's only March and it's a long way to Sept but a lot of counties would happily swap with us.

Mickey has us doing well and I think the majority of sensible fans would be happy for him to get another few years with this new team as he's got the experience whereas new managers like Logan, McGlennan etc would be on a step learning curve.

Re. Sat night and how we sat back in the second half I see Mickey's interview on teamtalkmag.com said that they were right not to run into the "nest of tackles" but to be patient and try to entice the Monaghan defence out.
He said it might not be pretty and what people want to see but it's what necessary nowadays to win matches.

Personally I think there needs to be a more balance between our excellent defensive system and how when we attack. What I mean is say we're playing one of the top 3 teams and we're 3 points down, will we change our shape and take a risk to push men forward. It is so ingrained in the players now to retreat back into their own half all the time.

I think with the large number of half back and half forwards we have at similar levels that we could afford to play a FF line of Mattie, Sean & Bradley though as Mattie found out on Sat night that even when you win a long ball in there, you can't do much with it as you're surrounded in seconds.
I think we'll see more of that pass where it's kicked into the FF line and it's then kicked back about 30 yards where there is more space to shoot.

Has Munroe got injured or dropped down the pecking order?
At the start of the league most people expected him to nail down a wing back position but has he played any part yet?
Also Mc Nulty was named at MF for a few games and still hasn't got on.
Was McClure even on the panel last year?

The problem is that this "patient" attacking play becomes so ingrained that it is the go to method when the pressure is applied in big matches. How many times last year did we pass the ball around and need a heroic score to pull us out, granted it worked in the Ulster Final but didn't work v Mayo! I have this abiding memory of the Mayo game of Colm Cav roaring at his team mates to push up as we slowly funneled the ball around midfield. The frustrating thing is that Mickey has developed a style that can be very effective as displayed in the first half on Saturday and at times last year, attacking at pace with the odd longer ball. We need to be able to vary our attacks a lot more to keep the opposition guessing as the second half approach on Saturday night is food and drink to the better sides and won't win us big games.

We were very effective in the first half on Saturday but I'd worry about how sustainable that kind of performance is. An awful lot of our first half points were long distance efforts (think McCann's 2 efforts, Burns, Meyler and Peter Harte's points). Whilst it would be great to think we could go out and do this every day the evidence over the past few years shows that this kind of accuracy is impossible to sustain for any team - it almost reminded my of Dublin v Donegal in 2014 when Flynn and Connolly shot the lights out in the first half, each nailing 2 or 3 efforts from outside the 45, and the shooting then deteriorated in the second half.

I worry that we often struggle to create easy scoring chances against packed defences (the fact that we are not reliable from free kicks from 35 yards+ doesn't help), and sure enough we reverted to type in the second half. Bar Cavanagh the only man who seemed capable of breaking in to a proper scoring position was McShane who as per usual kicked a couple of bad misses.

This was our problem against Mayo last year when we were relying on potshots from distance from McCarron, McCann and a Morgan free kick to try get the equaliser before Mayo gifted McCurry his chance.

As well as that we also need to be ruthless with goal chances.

McAliskey had two good chances against Kerry in 2015, Bradley had another that day.
McAliskey had the only goal opportunity in 2016 against Mayo.

If those goals go in we win those games for me.

The risk with the way we play is that if we fall behind we struggle at chasing games, but that is tempered with the fact that if we get a lead up, it forces sides to get to come out more against us and that's when we are at our most dangerous.

The 2015 game against Kerry was one that got away from us, we had enough chances to convincingly win that game and we had some poor refereeing decisions go against us. I don't think you can blame our style or approach that day, we went at them without fear and created plenty of goal chances but just weren't clinical enough.

The 2016 games against Donegal and Mayo were a bit underwhelming. Donegal are a difficult team to play against, particularly in Clones compared to Croke Park that year as it wouldn't have been as demanding on a few of their older guard. There was also probably the psychological edge to it, in fairness the lads showed great guts to dig it out against all the odds but I felt we were a bit tentative.

The Mayo game was very disappointing, we looked tentative and a bit too respectful. You could count that lads that turned up for that game on one hand - Harte, Sludden, McCarron and Donnelly. In saying that, Mayo weren't that much better and the result could easily have gone the other way if the breaks had fallen our way on the day but I think Mayo deserved the win on the balance.