Tyrone County Football and Hurling

[GetOverTheBar]

You lads are awful hard on men after one loss 

[Taylor]

Gutter journalism in the Sunday World today.

What was said and by who?

What dirt were they coming up with now?

[GetOverTheBar]

Michael Kerr putting red diesel in the car, front page. Must have been struggling on Saturday night for a headline.

[tyroneman]

Strange match yesterday, real curates egg.

Obviously need to bear in mind that there has been minimal training and very little time for L&D to get thier  sytle of football ingrained.

Positives:

-Donaghy was immense - best since debut in a long time
-Finally (it looks like) a reliable right footed free taker
-McKenna looked good early on, maybe nbt his best position
-Losing McNamee to injury and O'Neill to playacting put us on the back foot but we still were within 2 at the end
- NO need to show hand this early: McShane, McAliskey, McCurry, Canavan all hopefullyávilable to play a greater role in bigger games

Negatives

-Not sure we can go Man2Man in defence just yet
-DnG still got the whip hand on us, mentally that needs overcome
-Still getting caught out on quick restarts
-Shooting very poor in patches
-Mattie and Harte quiet - not sure either are in the right position - Mattie in FF line or MF could work better
-MF still a major concern, every other top team has 1 if not 2 first class operators in that area, we have none
-Not really a negative, but we need to find a stable position for McKenna - it's asking a lot for him to come in with very little football and play multiple roles

Overall though - plenty to be encouraged about and no need to panic

Armagh next will be tough

[BIGONE]

My team V Armagh

Morgan
Brennan McNamee Hampsey
Rafferty O'Neill McGeary
McKenna Kennedy (last chance)
Donaghy Bradley Meyler
McCurry M Donnelly Canavan

[Taylor]

My team V Armagh

Morgan
Brennan McNamee Hampsey
Rafferty O'Neill McGeary
McKenna Kennedy (last chance)
Donaghy Bradley Meyler
McCurry M Donnelly Canavan

Bradley & Canavan have to start IMHO.

Armagh showed yesterday they still cannot tackle and those two will win plenty of free kicks.

Donaghy was superb yesterday

[southtyronegael]

Definitely need a couple more scoring forwards next day. MC Geary and burns should never both start. One or none. Agree with Mattie to midfield. He is wasted dropping too deep. I think we need more presence in chb and I'd probably go with hampsey. Honestly can't see a starting place for Peter Harte.

[trailer]

If people come on here and be critical of players that's fine but back it up with some decent analysis of their shortcomings or performance on the day. For me a lot of the criticism on her hints at personal or even club related criticism. PFar too much lazy generalisations about players here.

McGeary gives the ball away far too much. He took a shot on Sat from 13 yards dropped it short and wide. Then tried to make it look like he was lobbing the keeper. He's no more a CF than I am an Astronaut.
Meyler has a great engine, but runs into corners. Picks wrong option gets slowed up and teams crowd us out. He just hasn't the game intelligence for this level.

[Angelo]

Meyler scored a point on Saturday, had another ruled out after it was called back for a free that was then pointed by Donaghy.

He contributed that while doing a great job on Ryan McHugh.

McGeary broke up a serious amount of play in the middle of the pitch and was linking our attacks extremely well and also scored a good point in the first half.

It's clear some people obviously never kicked a ball in their lives.

McGeary and Meyler were easily two of our best players Saturday so it's bizarre to single them out for criticism.

[GetOverTheBar]

I think it's just frustration at the much a muchness players. These players are all top level, don't make that mistake but sometimes Tyrone could be a bit more adventurous in picking an attacking player over say, one of the attritional men. But it's not a normal situation at present.

Can't really say much, the new management have been dealt a tricky enough task. 4 Ulster clashes in a row in your first 4 games (assuming no qualification in league) is hard to implement anything other than what you know. You are straight into a dogfight and no matter what they say, they won't want to make a habit of losing straight in the door.

[bigpackiechestout]

Meyler scored a point on Saturday, had another ruled out after it was called back for a free that was then pointed by Donaghy.

He contributed that while doing a great job on Ryan McHugh.

McGeary broke up a serious amount of play in the middle of the pitch and was linking our attacks extremely well and also scored a good point in the first half.

It's clear some people obviously never kicked a ball in their lives.

McGeary and Meyler were easily two of our best players Saturday so it's bizarre to single them out for criticism.

Managers love McGeary because of the intensity he brings. It's a throwback to the teams of the noughties the way he is able to close the space and make contact. These are great qualities and he can also take a score, and he's just been appointed vice captain so Logan and Dooher clearly rate him highly. However he does consistently give away cheap free kicks and pick up bookings - there's no point in him looking to the ref in frustration every time this happens, he needs to clean up his tackling style or at least stop giving away frees in the scoring zone.

Meyler is by all accounts the fittest player in the panel and has proven himself over the past few years to be our go to man marker for the opposition's danger man in the middle third. He's done effective jobs on the likes of McHugh, Fenton and Sean O'Shea.

So I do think both lads are good players and worthy of a place in the team but don't think both offer enough of a scoring threat to take up two forward positions. One should be named at wing back and one as wing forward. That then leaves us with 5 positions to fill with out and out forwards who can contribute on the scoreboard while also working back when required.

[trailer]

I think it's just frustration at the much a muchness players. These players are all top level, don't make that mistake but sometimes Tyrone could be a bit more adventurous in picking an attacking player over say, one of the attritional men. But it's not a normal situation at present.

Can't really say much, the new management have been dealt a tricky enough task. 4 Ulster clashes in a row in your first 4 games (assuming no qualification in league) is hard to implement anything other than what you know. You are straight into a dogfight and no matter what they say, they won't want to make a habit of losing straight in the door.

Our forward line on Saturday had 4 defenders in it.

[Taylor]

I think it's just frustration at the much a muchness players. These players are all top level, don't make that mistake but sometimes Tyrone could be a bit more adventurous in picking an attacking player over say, one of the attritional men. But it's not a normal situation at present.

Can't really say much, the new management have been dealt a tricky enough task. 4 Ulster clashes in a row in your first 4 games (assuming no qualification in league) is hard to implement anything other than what you know. You are straight into a dogfight and no matter what they say, they won't want to make a habit of losing straight in the door.

Our forward line on Saturday had 4 defenders in it.

Correct - we were unhappy for the latter part of the Harte years because we were too cautious.

Going by the game Saturday not much has changed.

The top teams go for the jugular - we are happy to scrape by and win games and the new management are not differing.

We need to play more forwards

[Angelo]

Meyler scored a point on Saturday, had another ruled out after it was called back for a free that was then pointed by Donaghy.

He contributed that while doing a great job on Ryan McHugh.

McGeary broke up a serious amount of play in the middle of the pitch and was linking our attacks extremely well and also scored a good point in the first half.

It's clear some people obviously never kicked a ball in their lives.

McGeary and Meyler were easily two of our best players Saturday so it's bizarre to single them out for criticism.

Managers love McGeary because of the intensity he brings. It's a throwback to the teams of the noughties the way he is able to close the space and make contact. These are great qualities and he can also take a score, and he's just been appointed vice captain so Logan and Dooher clearly rate him highly. However he does consistently give away cheap free kicks and pick up bookings - there's no point in him looking to the ref in frustration every time this happens, he needs to clean up his tackling style or at least stop giving away frees in the scoring zone.

Meyler is by all accounts the fittest player in the panel and has proven himself over the past few years to be our go to man marker for the opposition's danger man in the middle third. He's done effective jobs on the likes of McHugh, Fenton and Sean O'Shea.

So I do think both lads are good players and worthy of a place in the team but don't think both offer enough of a scoring threat to take up two forward positions. One should be named at wing back and one as wing forward. That then leaves us with 5 positions to fill with out and out forwards who can contribute on the scoreboard while also working back when required.

Your forwards don't necessarily need to be scorers though. It's certainly something both Meyler and McGeary need to improve but you look at other teams and scores can come from everywhere. Donegal have guys like Mogan and Ban Gallagher who can get scores from defence, Dublin have had Keegan and Durcan etc. McKenna for instance missed about four or five great chances Saturday.

Rather than McGeary and Meyler not getting the scores (it's not really what they are in the team for) - it's the likes of Harte, Donnelly and McKenna who were the disappointments in that regard.

I do agree we need more of a scoring threat in the team, positions are really not that relevant anymore - both McGeary and Meyler are in the team to play certain roles regardless of where they are named. The team named Saturday was a physical one to combat Donegal's size I think. I can see at least one, if not two of Brennan, McCurry, Bradley, McAlsikey, Canavan starting against Armagh.

[Angelo]

I think it's just frustration at the much a muchness players. These players are all top level, don't make that mistake but sometimes Tyrone could be a bit more adventurous in picking an attacking player over say, one of the attritional men. But it's not a normal situation at present.

Can't really say much, the new management have been dealt a tricky enough task. 4 Ulster clashes in a row in your first 4 games (assuming no qualification in league) is hard to implement anything other than what you know. You are straight into a dogfight and no matter what they say, they won't want to make a habit of losing straight in the door.

Our forward line on Saturday had 4 defenders in it.

Factually incorrect, the two Donnelly's have played the vast amount of their football at either midfield or the half forward line. I've never seen Richie Donnelly playing in defence at any level for Tyrone or Trillick.

Indeed Michael Cassidy and Peter Harte who were named in defence have played a lot of their football in the forward line through their careers.