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[Great to see Mooney and Annett back]

Real solid performance Saturday evening. Controlled and exciting moving forward. Defence organized themselves after a poor first 5 minutes. Be interesting to see what team is picked for Antrim. Thought everyone performed well and was a nice balance to the team. Great to see Mooney and Annett back, be some additions.

MacRory cup final week had me thinking of Mooney the other day, the best schools player I've ever seen. That's a brave statement but I haven't seen such a combination of size, skill, pace and power out of a 17/18 yo since. Done it for 2 years as well.

Marty Clarke taking Kilkeel to back to back finals would also be at the very top of that discussion

An Ulster University side backboned by Tyrone players have qualified for the Sigerson Cup final with a 1-13 to 0-11 victory over Maynooth tonight. Darragh and Ruairi Canavan, Ciaran Daly, Conor Cush, Peter Og McCartan, Oisin McCann and Steve Donaghy started for Ulster University while Dara Curran, Adam Donaghy, Eoin Montgomery, James Quinn, Harry Morgan and second-half sub Danny Fullerton were named on the bench.

Oisin McCann for me stood out. Surely worth a go on the County panel, has the physical size and is full of talent. If he got a run with the county I think he would turn into a top player.
I remain unconvinced by Conor Cush, I am not sure if he is cut out for the top level.

Thought McCann was brilliant last night as well, which is something I hadn't really seen out of him for Killyclogher to date.

Omagh's best player a Loughmacrory man for the second year in a row, that's a club making big strides

How heavy are Omagh CBS favoured on Sunday? Are they just edging it or are they expected to win by 4 or 5+?

It's a long time from the Academy made any noise at MacRory, only getting badly beaten in the 2015 final since the great generation from 2008-2011

Was just thinking about the 2015 final earlier. Academy team had Michael McKernan, Brian Kennedy, Conn Kilpatrick, Ciaran Higgins (Armagh) and a number of former county panelists Liam Rafferty, Daniel Kerr, Ryan Coleman and beat a decent Maghera team in the semi final in Ballinderry but didn't turn up for the final.

Omagh probably deserving favourites and have players that have been there and done it. Might be a year early for Dungannon but you never know. This year's Rannafast team would be fancied to make an impression over next two years.

I think Paul Donaghy and Armagh's Ben Crealey were on the bench for that team as well. In fairness, most the lads you named were a year young in 2015. It's 2016 were they really missed the boat, losing a semi narrowly to Maghera

Any rumoured fixture release dates?

Not be anytime soon I'm fairly sure it was April last year

How heavy are Omagh CBS favoured on Sunday? Are they just edging it or are they expected to win by 4 or 5+?

It's a long time from the Academy made any noise at MacRory, only getting badly beaten in the 2015 final since the great generation from 2008-2011

Agreed on Flynn. Supreme footballer and probably a nice fella but its all very vanilla, nothing of interest at all

I don't want to win the NFL or Ulster this year.

Tailor training after the NFL to peak for the All Ireland QFs. A loss to Donegal will get the knives out for everyone about "Glen lads back too early" "no depth" "no forwards" "Mickey Harte shouldn't have taken the Derry job" etc.

Nobody better at a siege mentality than Mickey Harte.

The one problem with that is Mickey never likes to lose games ever so I imagine we'll just be flat to the mat from now until we get beat!

The other problem is mickey hasnt beaten Kerry, Dublin or Mayo in 10 years in a championship match.

Would the last time this happened not be 2008 AI final? I could be missing a game, but the big gripe towards the end in Tyrone was how long we had went without cracking these 3 in championship. I can't remember a more recent one, possibly a Mayo game I'm forgetting?

Big chance for UUJ to finally deliver. Though you'd make UCD favourites having beaten them comfortably enough in Round 2A

UU didnt have the Canavans against UCD. Surely that puts them as favs. How many college teams have 2 of the best forwards in the country.

Didn't even know this, and Glass and Ethan Doherty available too. The Sigerson coverage is dreadful, when I was a lad it was massive but the GAA calendar is so difficult now. Wednesday nights in between important Allianz league games has destroyed a once great competition. But sure here, I can't offer any good alternatives either, it's seriously difficult

There was a discussion on here a few weeks back around the holiday period and quite a number of men were adamant the dates shouldn't be moved by 2 days as a Wednesday wasn't feasible.

Wait till they see the last 8 fixtures in Div 1 & 2 that is proposed.
4 on a Sunday and 4 on a Wednesday to wrap up the season.
 
Can't see how this is going to be accepted. One midweek or maybe two but 4 in a row in August won't suit lads who work in England or in the south.

But in fairness to the men setting up the system their hands are tied with the new county U20 group system plus the starred games in Tyrone having a limit of 5 games. Not an easy one to sort out.

As far as I know the All Ireland U20 football final is in May, so shouldn't really be a factor. And yes the 5 starred games is how we want it.
It's definitely still tricky though, if you consider Tyrone make the Group Stages of the AI and we can't play any more than 5 league games up to this point. If Tyrone were to make say an AI Semi final, you're looking at 10 league games left and its mid July. Only really have until early September to rattle these out, so the backlog in August is something we could be looking at every year if we won't budge on the 5 starred games. They'll get slated whatever they do but its a hard one to sort

Big chance for UUJ to finally deliver. Though you'd make UCD favourites having beaten them comfortably enough in Round 2A

Or the reserve proposal could end up being a brilliant idea. Games every other week, I assume alternating with Minors, give reserves a steady supply of football March through to July/August. Could be a lifeline for reserve football in Intermediate and Junior. Senior potentially may be an issue regarding Seniors taking reserve places.

What about the smaller clubs? Once reserves are finished they then don't train which will bring training numbers down

Would they not face the same problem through the year when they can't field a reserve team because of the double fixture? Would reserves numbers not drop off for the same reason, knowing they won't have a game on the Friday? Something different could be worth a trial. The county board at present have the Senior League running the best it has ever ran, they might now be trying to get the same in place for reserves, I would be willing to give them the chance.

Fair shout I'd give them the benefit of the doubt perhaps. Our adult structures are brilliant the last 2/3 years when you take a look around the rest of the country

Strange one regarding reserves if the plan is to play them off weekly starting 10th March

Will the Ulster leagues be finished up by then or do many clubs enter them now?

Only 5 Tyrone clubs entering this year far as I know.
Senior: Donaghmore
Intermediate: Stewartstown
Junior: Brocagh, Clan na Gael, Urney

I think 10th March is tight enough for Ulster leagues being wrapped up if you went to the final

I see some Tyrone people bragging about their 4 All Ireland's on Facebook. Something must have upset them. Humility is a positive human trait. Apparently they "even won one without Mickey Harte".

Tyrone's facebook is full of head the balls, every county has them. Ours congregate on Facebook

Strange one regarding reserves if the plan is to play them off weekly starting 10th March