All-Ireland Football Qualifiers 2016

Started by Tony, June 07, 2016, 10:54:46 AM

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Giovanni

I would agree that, overall, Anthony Cunningham's arrival seems to have coincided with an improvement in performances (particularly the second half against Dublin and the first game against Armagh).

Having said that, I would fully agree with the implication of blueandwhite's question. Our defence has tightened up and that may have something to do with a lot of lads filtering back, which is probably a new "tactic" introduced by Cunningham this year. But it may also be linked to the fact that Gearoid Hanrahan and Stephen Attride are playing great stuff beside Mark Timmons, which we didn't have for most of the league. Modern football is obviously about working hard and defending in numbers but in the last game against Armagh, I saw at least a third of those defending players serving no real defensive function. We conceded well over 20 very scoreable chances to them, which definitely would have been taken by better teams.

If you were watching Kerry last weekend, you would see the job they did on the Tipp kickouts. Most of Tipp's kickouts had to go long and were promptly swallowed up by the bigger and stronger Kerry middle third. I don't understand why we concede the kickouts so easily, particularly when we have such a strong midfield.

Underthescoreboard

Don't forget that 40,000 Tipp and Waterford supporters will be trying to get through Limerick (via tunnel and city) to get to the Gaelic grounds for Sunday afternoon too. It will be pretty backed up by the toll plaza for the tunnel. So make sure to leave extra time when heading to Ennis.

Giovanni

Thanks for the heads up. The Munster Final is at 4pm isn't it?

OTF

Quote from: Giovanni on July 07, 2016, 05:04:26 PM
I would agree that, overall, Anthony Cunningham's arrival seems to have coincided with an improvement in performances (particularly the second half against Dublin and the first game against Armagh).

Having said that, I would fully agree with the implication of blueandwhite's question. Our defence has tightened up and that may have something to do with a lot of lads filtering back, which is probably a new "tactic" introduced by Cunningham this year. But it may also be linked to the fact that Gearoid Hanrahan and Stephen Attride are playing great stuff beside Mark Timmons, which we didn't have for most of the league. Modern football is obviously about working hard and defending in numbers but in the last game against Armagh, I saw at least a third of those defending players serving no real defensive function. We conceded well over 20 very scoreable chances to them, which definitely would have been taken by better teams.

If you were watching Kerry last weekend, you would see the job they did on the Tipp kickouts. Most of Tipp's kickouts had to go long and were promptly swallowed up by the bigger and stronger Kerry middle third. I don't understand why we concede the kickouts so easily, particularly when we have such a strong midfield.

Would you concede the reason the two lads are playing well is because they are not being totally exposed  anymore. I do agree a lot of those filtering back are not doing much defending this was true back in McNulty day, would this is got to do with their poor tackling skills often discussed here.

What I find ironic is, it has taken us 3 years and 2 to 2.5 managers and much anguish to get us back to where  we were ( the dreaded McNulty game ) the last time we played Clare. Hope we get the same performance AND  result.

Tony

McNulty's tactics were different. All the top teams have modern tactics.

We have a choice:

We can play 15 v 15 and be crap.

Or we have tactics for the modern game and compete.

And no that doesn't mean 14 men behind the ball. Some people have a distaste for the modern game but they don't even know how it works.



blueandwhite1

McNulty was building a system and ethos but probably too slowly. A bit like McGeeney he wanted a perfect defensive system and robotic compliance to a set plan and left the attacking plan for down the road once we got the defence right. The problem was that perfection was unobtainable and the team got stagnant and didn't express themselves going forward. Therefore we were always stuck with 14 men in the one half of the pitch. In fairness under McNulty Laois learned to compete physically and he transformed us from lightweights (go back 7 or 8 years and that was by far our no.1 complaint - men against boys). We also had more defensive shape than now although it is arguable if it was as effective as it needed to be. The challenge is to get the mix right and to blend patient penetration against blanket defences before taking on the shot, and knowing when to break at speed and get quick purposeful ball in. My assessment of Laois today is that we are at a very early stage of this and I hope we are working on improving it.

Underthescoreboard

You also need good scoring forwards for any defensive system to work. McNulty was a bit unlucky that we didn't have an over flowing stick of them for his last two years. Still though, we competed with tier one teams and were only beaten by the reigning all Ireland champions to knock us out in his last 2 years.

What followed in the next 2 years best forgotten about.

There's no doubt about Cunninghams influence. It is early days. As Cork hurlers found out against Tipp, you can't develop a sweeper system in just 8 weeks. Sure we are finding out feet, but it was always going to be brutal against Armagh. They are also very defensive. Effectively what you had last Saturday was both teams retreating with 13 players to their own '45 when they lost the ball. It looks completely different against Dublin when you are breaking into a half an acre of space.

The thing about this system is that it is effective. Effective against tier 1 counties as it provides protection for your full back line and effective against your own level because you will never concede high scores. Let's just put it this way, would we have conceded 5 goals to Derry playing like we did last Saturday.

The previous comment was correct in saying that McNulty fell down because we didn't know what to do with the ball once we had it, we have better forwards now, so we just have to utilise them better. But it will take time. I mean at this stage, so we even know our six best forwards?

It's scrappy and looks awful but it's a hell of a lot better than having Derry or Galway saunter down the middle of your defence scoring at will.

Finally, it's going to be tight again on Saturday, but beating Armagh twice should see us have the composure to see out a tight game. I think we'll win 0-14 to 0-13 or something like that. Wouldn't be surprised if we were behind for a lot of it, Clare are a good well drilled side.

Them if we got Sligo at home and then Tipperary in Tullamore, we could potentially be having a cut off the Connaught champions for a place in an all Ireland semi. That's the dream. That's why inter county players for Laois put in so much effort.

There's a great opportunity here, the systems not perfect, the football maybe tough to watch but the lads will leave it all on the field and I for one, am fairly happy with where we are now, and where we are going. Up Laois!!

Giovanni

Good discussion here.

My take on it is that we would have conceded a very high score on Saturday if Armagh were any good at all. The number of chances they kicked away was unreal. Fair enough, we kicked away a good few of our own but if we're talking about defensive solidity, last Saturday's display would not give me much confidence.

Having said that, I thought the second half against Dublin and the first match against Armagh was better defensively - Armagh kicked a good few wides the first day but that was, in many cases, down to the pressure that was put on the kicker. The second day it was much more about plain bad shooting on Armagh's part.

Clare have some decent players, especially in midfield and up front (I don't think they have a great defence though so we shouldn't forget that either when we're devising our "tactics"). They scored 17 points against Kerry. They scored an average of 17 points a game in the league. This'll be a test for the defensive system.

BallyroanAbu

Maybe Cunningham has steadied ship we will know for sure on Sunday.  How can you judge on the Dublin game where they were out of sight & the Armagh team the only team we beat in the League (incidentally away from home).  Sunday is judgement day for Lillis (prob gone anyway)  & Cunningham who I doubt is any use but lets see.

theoldvet

Good discussion here, but could someone tell me why
Armagh completely took over the first 20 min
of the second half, and score 1 4 [ I think ]
without reply.

maccer

Because it wasn't robotic football like the first half was. Teams get used to the pedestrian familiar pattern of..we'll let you take a short kick out and start handpassing the ball slowly up the field...meanwhile we'll retreat and try to turn you over once you get to our45...Then you retreat and we'll handpass the ball slowly back down the field etc etc. Armagh pushed up into laois faces in the first 20 mins of the second half, contested every kick out and actually won some ball in our half of the field. They play with abandon which seemed to shock our lads until in fairness to them they composed themselves and pushed on with better subscription. It was actually good football to watch from Armagh. There is plenty of talk around that teams are moving away from the ultra negative approach. Hopefully we're not just starting to adopt it when the better teams are moving to some new firm of play

maccer

That should have been " better substitutions"

Junior Ex Laoistalk

#282
Quote from: theoldvet on July 08, 2016, 09:48:03 PM
Good discussion here, but could someone tell me why
Armagh completely took over the first 20 min
of the second half, and score 1 4 [ I think ]
without reply.

I'm looking at Laois football a good number of years now and believe me, it's always been the same.
Somewhere in our subconscious we think we are a seriously good team and when we get a big lead up we mentally switch off believing that "we can be that great team again whenever we want" and blow teams away.
Obviously it doesn't work like that and we suffer defeats a lot when we should have won. I think that's why you very seldom see Laois teams go a long way ahead of our rivals through fear as we simply don't know what to do if we find ourselves in that situation. That's where we need a good management team and strong leaders on the field to guide us through those rare times.
Sunday could be one of those days. I think we are good enough to build up a good lead as in my opinion we are a better team than them but they need to start believing that.

I would go man to man for the first 20 mins and see what they're made of as I think we would be stronger than them in most areas of the field. Depending on how that goes we could plan our strategy for the remainder of the game. If we go behind we have to develop a fear of losing and play as if winning is the only thing that matters and if we are leading we have to develop the same fear of being beaten and protect what we have.
Winners are not those who never fail, but those who never quit!

redsetanta

Best of luck to the team today and those of you travelling down. Meanwy and Walsh will be disappointed not to be starting but two good lads to bring on. In fairness hey're probably better suited to that role.
The real glory is being knocked to your knees and then coming back. That's real glory. VinceLombardi

SCFC

Will the team that's named start though?