Tyrone County Football and Hurling

[Fuzzman]

We all know Murphy is Donegal's main player and can have a huge influence on the game.
This is why Mickey usually assigns someone to mark him tightly with a lot of effort being put in to put him off his game and often block his runs etc.
We need to be careful though that someone doesn't pick up a black (or red) card in doing so as we saw happen last year between Connolly and Lee Keegan. I thought McCarron dealt with him quite well last year without the nonsense Justy was up to a few years back.
Going a man down to Donegal could be the losing of the game and players like Mattie and Sludden seem to be picking up a lot of cards in the last year.

Mattie has frustrated the hell out of me for a good while now and maybe it's because I expect too much from him or that he's often a marked man now for special treatment and as we know he doesn't like to shirk the tougher side of his game.

I see in the Irish News, Sean is joining Mickey in his denial of their defensive style of play and saying he thinks people will see a different Tyrone this year. I think they tend to point at the high amount of points they score as an indicator but as we saw you can still play a very defensive system and get high scores against the weaker teams.

[nrico2006]

Rory Gallagher at the mind games talking how refs have copped on to unfair treatment MM receives,expect David Coldrick to have noted his concern.

They seem to think if Murphy plays out the pitch he isn't allowed to be marked and should be given a free run at it. Given Justy is just back I don't think it will be him doing the marking duties this week.

I thought McCarron did a good job on Murphy last year, will be interesting to see if he gets the nod again. I think alot of people are forgetting that alot of Donegals players are untested at Championship level, and were very poor in the first half v Antrim. Also, from last years game they are missing Mac Niallais who kicked a couple of great scores. Ryan McHugh kicked 3 scores in the first half last year too but did nothing when Rory Brennan moved onto him in the second half, I would imagine Brennan will be on him from the start this weekend.

Anyone got any insight on how Matty Donnelly has been playing for Trillick this year? He didn't play well throughout the league (didn't help that he was stuck in FF getting very little service) and was quiet v Derry so hoping that he is due a big game for us.

Thats what I think alot of people are failing to see.  This is not the Donegal of the past 6 years and they have not done anything yet to warrant the fear the previous team did.  Who all has retired from the Donegal team over the past two years?

[tiempo]

We all know Murphy is Donegal's main player and can have a huge influence on the game.
This is why Mickey usually assigns someone to mark him tightly with a lot of effort being put in to put him off his game and often block his runs etc.
We need to be careful though that someone doesn't pick up a black (or red) card in doing so as we saw happen last year between Connolly and Lee Keegan. I thought McCarron dealt with him quite well last year without the nonsense Justy was up to a few years back.
Going a man down to Donegal could be the losing of the game and players like Mattie and Sludden seem to be picking up a lot of cards in the last year.

Mattie has frustrated the hell out of me for a good while now and maybe it's because I expect too much from him or that he's often a marked man now for special treatment and as we know he doesn't like to shirk the tougher side of his game.

I see in the Irish News, Sean is joining Mickey in his denial of their defensive style of play and saying he thinks people will see a different Tyrone this year. I think they tend to point at the high amount of points they score as an indicator but as we saw you can still play a very defensive system and get high scores against the weaker teams.

What nonsense was that then?

[The Bearded One]

I assume it was the same nonsense McGee was at with Sean Cavanagh...marking him tightly, over stepping the mark more than once...trying to remove the influence of the oppositions key player...unfortunately that is overlooked and only Justy Mc is ever talked about...!

[Redhand Santa]

They also conveniently forgot Neil Gallagher trying to break Sean Cavanagh's fingers off the ball.

[tiempo]

I assume it was the same nonsense McGee was at with Sean Cavanagh...marking him tightly, over stepping the mark more than once...trying to remove the influence of the oppositions key player...unfortunately that is overlooked and only Justy Mc is ever talked about...!

Marking tightly is nonsense?
Trying to remove the influence of the oppositions key player is nonsense?

When did Justy overstep the mark?

[Fuzzman]

Ahh now lads, we all saw Lee Keegan at it last year.
All I'm saying is there is a line and I thought last year McCarron did quite well to mark Murphy tightly but without the shouting in his face, off the ball pulling and holding, illegally blocking his runs or grappling him and bringing to ground off the ball.
All the stuff we tend to turn a blind eye to when our man is doing it but we don't like it when others do it to our players.

Yeah the two McGees, Gallagher and a few others were no angels either.

[The Bearded One]

I assume it was the same nonsense McGee was at with Sean Cavanagh...marking him tightly, over stepping the mark more than once...trying to remove the influence of the oppositions key player...unfortunately that is overlooked and only Justy Mc is ever talked about...!

Marking tightly is nonsense?
Trying to remove the influence of the oppositions key player is nonsense?

When did Justy overstep the mark?

You missed my point Tiempo...I agree with you and was making the observation that McGee displayed the same style as Justy did but no one seems to mention this!

[tiempo]

I assume it was the same nonsense McGee was at with Sean Cavanagh...marking him tightly, over stepping the mark more than once...trying to remove the influence of the oppositions key player...unfortunately that is overlooked and only Justy Mc is ever talked about...!

Marking tightly is nonsense?
Trying to remove the influence of the oppositions key player is nonsense?

When did Justy overstep the mark?

You missed my point Tiempo...I agree with you and was making the observation that McGee displayed the same style as Justy did but no one seems to mention this!

I dont agree that

Marking tightly is nonsense
Trying to remove the influence of the oppositions key player is nonsense
Or that Justy overstepped the mark

The example of trying to break break Sean Cavanaghs fingers was given as an example elsewhere, absolutely trampish, but only one man did that.

The examples of shouting in his face, off the ball pulling and holding, illegally blocking his runs or grappling him and bringing to ground off the ball were not used by Justy either.

Just interested in the generalisations and tarring of players by loose association being put forward e.g. Joe did roar in the face of Walsh in the 08 Final, I don't know what is illegal about blocking a run - surely that is a defender is there to do, Sean Cavanagh and Keegan had a good grapple last year. None of this was Justy.

The RTE studio spent considerable time trying to pin such antics on Justy a couple of years ago in Ballybofey but couldn't come up with anything. He played the kind of game the defenders of old would have been lauded for and had Murphy completely stifled.

Interpretations? Not trying to be pedantic.

[Fuzzman]

In Jim McGuinness' article in the Irish Times this week, he's talking about Mayo and their lack of attacking structure.

What is a functioning forward line? For me, it comes down to this psychological concept called Shared Mental Models. It basically comes down to all players on the field being clear about what the collective objective is.

You can see its evidence in contemporary Gaelic football now, too, in the patterns that teams run. You can see it in Tyrone (in particular) and Dublin and Kerry week in and week out. When I was with Donegal, I was forever preaching to the boys that good teams will always give you a chance to beat them.

If you can identify their patterns of play then you can come up with a way of exploiting them. So there is an Achilles heel involved. But I strongly believe it is better to have a team with a deeply ingrained methodology of attacking for precisely the sort of situation that Mayo found themselves deep into the game on Sunday.

...

If there isn't a go-to player, then your collective system needs to be operating at a very high level. For instance, Tyrone do not have Stephen O'Neill or Peter Canavan anymore. So their collective system is well-oiled and calibrated to provide whoever ends up with the ball with a reasonable scoring opportunity.

-------------------

I wonder does McGuinness and Rory Gallagher still chat and discuss tactics from afar or was it a clean break?

[The Trap]

What shared mental models or go to plays did Tyrone have in the last 20 mins against Mayo last year?  Jim talking pure dung again......

[Scoring Zone]

This game will be very interesting, Tyrone have done rightly in the past nullifying Murphy from open play but his frees have done the damage. Personally I think McGlynn has destroyed tyrone a few times and hopefully he's clamped down on finally on Sunday, in a game I think there is huge pressure to deliver to prove the ulster final wasn't a once off and it will be interesting how the team responds, it will come down to the accuracy from frees and barring L Brennan being picked solely for that, it'll be donegal by 2 or 3, hope I'm wrong tho

[WT4E]

In Jim McGuinness' article in the Irish Times this week, he's talking about Mayo and their lack of attacking structure.

What is a functioning forward line? For me, it comes down to this psychological concept called Shared Mental Models. It basically comes down to all players on the field being clear about what the collective objective is.

You can see its evidence in contemporary Gaelic football now, too, in the patterns that teams run. You can see it in Tyrone (in particular) and Dublin and Kerry week in and week out. When I was with Donegal, I was forever preaching to the boys that good teams will always give you a chance to beat them.

If you can identify their patterns of play then you can come up with a way of exploiting them. So there is an Achilles heel involved. But I strongly believe it is better to have a team with a deeply ingrained methodology of attacking for precisely the sort of situation that Mayo found themselves deep into the game on Sunday.

...

If there isn't a go-to player, then your collective system needs to be operating at a very high level. For instance, Tyrone do not have Stephen O'Neill or Peter Canavan anymore. So their collective system is well-oiled and calibrated to provide whoever ends up with the ball with a reasonable scoring opportunity.

-------------------

I wonder does McGuinness and Rory Gallagher still chat and discuss tactics from afar or was it a clean break?

It was a break alright don't know about Clean - as far as I am aware they woul dnt break breath to each other. I heard McGuinness done everything in his power to make sure Gallagher didn't get the job but failed.

[Redhand Santa]

We really need to Peter Harte and Donnelly to step up on Sunday and put in big games. They are potentially two of our best players and have been great at times but also haven't done enough at others. Harte has a habit of producing ten minutes of brilliance followed by very quiet spells. Both have cruised through games this year without ever really getting properly going. If we could get them both producing to their potential for 70 minutes we'd be hard to beat. They're at an age now and at a stage of their career where they need to push on.

[square_ball]

Agreed on Harte and Donnelly potential to be great players but need to produce it on the big days and drag the team through All-Ireland quarter and semi finals.