Messages

High intensity game yesterday in carmen, very exciting right until the end. some good individual performances from petey harte, mcginley. thought dromore were lucky not to get a few men sent off in the end but draw overall fair result. cant see much between them again next day round.

clonoe deserving winners over omagh. decent game but died a death in second half after second penalty which seem fairly soft. clonoe look like they could be contenders this year, especially with favourable draw for quarters

Predictions?

Greencastle v Eglish 8.30pm Fri 6th Sept Omagh - Eglish by 3

Augher v Donaghmore 6pm Sat 7th Loughmacrory - draw

Trillick v Ardboe 6pm Sat 7th Pomeroy - Ardboe with easy win

Derrylaughan v Coalisland 6pm Sun 8th Edendork - Coalisland with win but quite tight. Happy to get through first round and men back for next round
Cookstown v An Charraig Mhor 8.30pm Fri 13th Omagh - carmen easy

Killyclogher v Moy 5.45pm Sat 14th Galbally - Killyclogher but will be tight

Clonoe v Omagh 3pm Sun 15th Dunmoyle - Very hard to call, going for omagh as beat them last year and oneill back this year

Dromore v Errigal Ciaran 6.15pm Sun 15th Carrickmore - errigal by 2-3

It has to be the most open senior championship for years. No real outstanding teams. Errigal are weaker without McGinley, Dromore weaker without Sludden, Coalisland missing a few players. Ardboe seem to be going well in the league, but its hard to gauge from league matches.

clonoe and ardboe the two teams seem to have had best preparation. obviously winner of errigal/dromore up there aswell. coalisland have hit a run of bad form and injuries at wrong time, but if get over 1st round match may be able to regroup. Killyclogher going well too, always a good championship pedigree aswell so fancy them to get far but cant see them winning it

from what Iv seen of Mark down through the years. a top player and a great lad too. EC unique isnt doing him any favours here claiming him to be best in tyrone, may well be but its neither here nor there. tyrone minors doing well without him and he's going well for club as well. Great to see a young lad devoted to club as well, maybe a sign that people are getting abit fed up with how club teams in tyrone are treated now a days

Strange choice IMO if he opted out, Tyrone Minors is the pinnacle of any young footballers career and the glamour that comes with it,i say this and with no disrespect to Errigal Ciaran but will he ever get the chance to play at Croke Park again?Imagine the buzz of an All Ireland week and All Ireland day in any Young footballers life, hope this current crop dont fall by the way way side like some of the previous All Ireland Minor winning sides with very little of them making the break through it appears after strong promise. Either way the current crop will head off down to College the week after the AIF and half of them will buy into the whole hype surrounding themselves and the false sense of security it brings and more than most of them will sadly slowly start into decline and never fulfill the potential they had following a few years of living like a rockstar.

I know, not saying I agree with his choice but Im sure he had his reasons. Not for me to judge when dont know the full story. Im sure he regrets now though, never mind croke park and all ireland medals, his pulling power in the hatfield has just greatly decreased

from what Iv seen of Mark down through the years. a top player and a great lad too. EC unique isnt doing him any favours here claiming him to be best in tyrone, may well be but its neither here nor there. tyrone minors doing well without him and he's going well for club as well. Great to see a young lad devoted to club as well, maybe a sign that people are getting abit fed up with how club teams in tyrone are treated now a days

Beragh v Tattyreagh   4pm   
Drumragh v Drumquin   5.30pm   
Errigal III v Killyman 
Castlederg v Killeeshil   5pm   

couple of tasty encounters there. there should be a fair bit of bite between Red knights and the 'tatts'. drumragh and drumquin know each other well too. the derg and killeeshil is interesting, would the dergs league form leave them favourites for this one? would have imagined that happening 6-7years ago

again county board have made a nonsense of fixtures but lets try and put that behind us lads, look forward to the club championship. really excited for it this year. been no real stand out team in senior league, coalisland started brightly but seemed to be going through rough patch now, dromore probably biggest point to prove but tough fixture against dunmoyle men first round. clonoe seem to flying under radar aswell.very difficult to call. can see ardboe being dark horses this year, less county distraction than usual, mcguigans on board.could be hard to stop

I'll throw one out to the Tyronies here on the back of the defeat of a potentially pretty good side.  Mickey Harte has revolutionised Tyrone football and that is without a shadow of a doubt but do you feel that maybe now is the time to change?  200 games is a nice milestone and it may be the situation that to take this team and utilize the obvious talent that is there then a change is needed?  Would it be time for Canavan to step into the hotseat and re-invigorate things?  I get the impression from some that they are getting frustrated with Harte's negative approach to the game, may a new face change that approach?

Is Canavan the answer??? Absoltely not. He has achieved next to nothing as a manager and I for one would hate for him to be the next tyrone manager, although i fear this will someday be the case. He is the perfect example that good players do not automatically make good managers.

He has achieved nothing worth speaking of with Fermanagh, in his 3 years managing errigal Ciaran, who have 4 senior teams, and countless numbers to pick from he won 1-2 championship GAMES and delivered errigal 1 league title, pathetic.

And by all accounts he isnt the main man with regards the teams at holy trinity, i hear that is all down to the excellent work of another errigal man, adrian o'donnell.

Harte should be retained, deservedly for what he has achieved, or alternatively lack of a better option. But in a couple of years....(Manager) Ryan Porter, (Trainer) Peter donnelly, (Assistants) Adrian O'Donnell and Gavin Devlin.
Outside the County.......Kieran McGeeney

thats a very bitter post against the best player in the history of tyrone (alongside cavanagh probably). Agreed peter didnt win a championship with errigal but was beat by eventual winners in first round twice and then in quarters once. And as for fermanagh, its difficult to judge as not sure the quality of player is there to work with. Im not saying peter should be next tyrone manager but a bit of respect, he's no better or worse than other candidates you mentioned. Personally rate porter very high but he usually more of a coach than manager.

I also do agree that perhaps time for Mickey to step down. greatest manager in tyrone's history and one of the best but everything comes to a natural conclusion and I think this is his. can always return after a few years aswell if need be

When is a foot block not a foot block ?

Can anyone familiar with the rules clear this one up ?

I found this

"5.17 To block or attempt to block with the boot
when an opponent is kicking the ball from the
hand(s)."

Somebody else clarified that it has to be deemed dangerous play.

My reckoning is just that rule you quoted. You can't stick yer boot out to try and block a kick.

So was Martin Carney right ? It hit the Mayo lad's leg so it was not a foul ? It has to be the boot that makes contact with the ball when you put your boot in the way of the ball ?

It's a bad rule.

It's a daft rule, surely there is a huge difference between a lad using his boot to block a kick from hand from a distance of less than half metre to someone that is 2-3 metres away from the player kicking the ball.

the rule isnt a new thing. being about years. just now people who dont have a clue have jumped on the band wagon and deemed every shot that happens to hit off a mans foot as foot block. really annoys me. only a foot block if a man leads with his foot, raised and blocks close to when kicker has hit it (official interpretation from ref's is that a foul when foot-ball-foot make contact at one time but got to the stage now if its dangerous, then its blown). cant be used to give a free against a man who has flung himself in front of the ball, or indeed attempted to block with his hands and just happens to hit his foot. its designed to stop men firing themselves kung fu style, leading with feet to block the ball.

cant actually remember todays incident right, would needa see it again on tv so not specifically referring to this incident

sorry for rant but really annoys me, we had a penalty given against us in a club game this year for a defender on the line, blocked a shot from about 5 yards away with his foot and ref gave a penalty. just silly and a rule that certainly needs tidied up.

as expected tyrone just not good enough and havent been for the past couple of years. our experience allows us to grind out matches against lower class teams through qualifiers but everytime in last couple of years we have come up against a top 5 side in quarters or semi's we have been well beat, kerry, dublin, cork and mayo today. mayo couldve and shouldve won by 10pnts or more today. tyrone wont be competeing for all irelands in the next 5 years.....not through lack of talent but just lack the leadership and character that we'v been blessed with in the past 10 years.

also never a footblock, yes ball hit his foot but thats not the definition of a footblock, foot must be high and block ball at point of contact of player kicking the ball. pulling at straws with that one.....

Tyrone will win this game easily. And should go on to reach quarters anyway. Few injuries yes but if either Steve or Joey can get fit then should be even less of a problem. Heard rumours Tim Harney was called up to panel but maybe that's wrong if mickey O'Neill has been. Can't understand why mickey would consider calling up other players. He has a panel in excess of 30 players who have been training since November. Tried it last year with mcguigan and didn't work. And what does it say to the other players on the panel as well.

Tyrone: P McConnell; A McCrory, C Clarke, D Carlin; R McNamee, C Gormley, Sean O'Neill; Joe McMahon, C Cavanagh; Mattie Donnelly, M Donnelly, P Harte; M Penrose, O Mulligan, D McCurry.

Subs used: R McMenamin for Carlin, D McCaul for McNamee, A Cassidy for Mattie Donnelly, Stephen O'Neill for Penrose, B McGuigan for McCurry

The tyrone team that started against kerry last year.....only men not involved this year are mcconnell, mulligan and rice and mcguigan. All of whom mickey if they hadn't retired and taken decision away from mickey would still be involved. Only new man involved is mcaliskey......hardly rebuilding a new team. Tyrone went full tilt at a league whereas most other teams were preparing for championship so its not a good indicator of where we are at. hard to knew whether mickey is reluctant to change it up or are the new players just not good enough, especially in defence

cork had 7 debutants against limerick....now thats rebuilding

Typical of this board that instead of marvelling at the pace, power and skill of the donegal team as a whole, we have people on here talking about who's fans were the worst. As a tyrone fan myself, cant stand most tyrone supporters, especially the tyrone fans that arent affiliated to any club, even worse if they are women, nothing worse. embarrassing at times in the league. but all teams are the same so wouldnt worry.

as regards the game, tyrone arent good enough, havent been for a few years. sheer fitness got them through the league and masked alot of issues but shown up again again and again come championship by top 3-4 teams. defence has no decent man markers, too many average footballers in middle 8, and stevie o, our main marksman isnt the player he was (and by that i mean, he's still good but not the same player who couldve guaranteed you 4-5pnts in a tight game a few years ago).

The gaa has never seen a team like Donegal before. Absolute animals. the work gone into them is a credit to them and the association. Will be interesting to see how quick the wheels come off the wagon once they get beat but

Yes a knowledgeable football man like the referee who constantly ran ahead of the play waiting on the long ball which never came because of sweepers??
I too was talking to Ardboe men and Eglish men coming out of the game and both thought he ruined it. The last two red cards was for 2 players shouldering other as the sub came on, a bit of welcome to the party shannanigans.......in injury time for god sake!
I wonder will more clubs look about Monday night games after the bumper crowd in Dunmoyle last night?

Au contraire-former county footballer I was talking to. Easy to target referees. Should players be given an amnesty for incidents that occur in injury time?

Managed to make the game for once and really enjoyed. great atmosphere, some good play. ref was ok, wouldnt say he wrecked the game but few odd decisions. Carmen starting to shape up a wee bit from what i saw, certainly didnt look like the dismal team everyone were saying they were. Errigal looked sharp too but still some way to go.

Alot of interesting results in early stages, championship wide open this year it would seem. Coalisland seem to be form team in league again. Are clonoe on the downward slope? Dromore still slugging away and picking up points but maybe missing the flair of before. very interesting year ahead hopefully

Kyle coney is probably one of the most under rated players in county imo.

Aye but you would say that Kyle.

Kyle coney I most certainly are not. Just happen to think he's a very very good player and a step above most of the young lads that are around at the minute. A lot of people may disagree but that's what the boards for.....