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All this talk about who could be there and might be playing for Derry always comes round.  If lads for their own reasons have decided to go travel after the league games then we got to work with those who have committed and put the effort in.
Derry had enough to beat Laois but for some reason we decided to abandon the defensive set up second half. The decision for the sweeper and others to bomb forward and who don't have the legs to get back and leave the house down cost us. Laois must have thought Christmas had arrived early when they started winning all the ball around the middle, had no pressure on the man playing a pass and had acres of space between the lines. Even a man like Rodgers was hung out to dry plus bringing in subs with ball and men coming at them after every kickout.                                                                                     
Contrast that with the Ulster final Sunday. Donegal for most of the game gave no space tackled like demons around the 45 so no good ball could be played in and when they did look under pressure they had the likes of Hugh McFadden on the edge of the square helping out plus the rest sprinting back and tackling. That takes serious athleticism and playing for the team to get back at speed and not caring if you don't get your name in the headlines. When Donegal did slacken off from that when it was already over the likes of Paddy McGrath and others looked ordinary. Up until that himself and the rest looked like the best defensive set up in the country. I'd say Rodgers would be All Star material with that defensive help around him. Top teams rarely have one on one contests with a forward getting good ball inside the 20 with space to turn and run unless they're so wide it's not a danger. We let Laois who had got scores and a goal chance in the first half from limited possession win loads of the ball and gave them space through the middle they didn't have first half.  Unfortunately for all the names of who could/should not be playing we lack a big man or two who can field a ball when a team pushes up on the kickouts as well as real leadership on the field to change things and settle it. Hopefully that can be changed otherwise we will have this underage talent coming in and not getting the support to develop.

Really this should be played at Celtic pk. It's either our county ground for Championship games or it's not. If it's not then the powers that be should have the honesty to close it up and sell the place and use the money elsewhere. Probably the only reason they aren't is that goes against the GAA aims of urban development so it wouldn't go down well in Croke pk.

There's enough rancor and division in Derry with north/south/city... without the place we play at being another one. We must be the only county that when we get a home draw a lot of the comments on the Derry fbook page are about the venue.  Surely supporters can travel 30 minutes to one hour to support the county team. Was never a problem when we were going really well - now it's a handy excuse. It's as well we don't live in a county as big as Kerry or Cork or nobody would ever go to a game.

Any one else think there was a deliberate Tyrone tactic of systematically fouling the runner, dunno how many times Tad, and to a slightly lesser extent Lynn, were fouled, the CHB [for a punch] and Colm Cavanagh [3 bad fouls] were both lucky not to be lined.

I think it was a clear Tyrone tactic to slow down the attack until they could funnel men back. We played into their hands in this regard by slowing down our freekicks, mostly waiting till Chrissy got there to take it, it really slows our game down and in the majority of cases when he did take it, it was kicked backwards 15 metres, which quite frankly any player could do. You could see the point in Chrissy hitting these frees if he was doing something special with them but all this does is kill momentum as it takes a few seconds for him to get to the place where the free occurred, which is exactly what Tyrone wanted. It wouldn't surprise me if they hadn't factored fouling around that area of the pitch knowing that the free wouldn't be taken until Chrissy got there and that this would give them time to reset.

Whilst we played all right there was no going for the jugular which is what championship football should be about, there was a definite element of safety first about our play, if we slipped the leash we could def have given them a proper rattle.

Karl McKaigue, Paul McNeill, Enda Lynn, Tad and Shane McGuigan were all great for us, Emmett Bradley was decent too when he came in and all round I wouldn't be critical of anyone as we put in a huge effort on the day, though I would say Ryan Bell looked as if he was not fully fit.

Agree with most of that. Not sure why Chrissy has to do that.  A lot of looking to be on the ball and taking an extra touch that isn't really going anywhere and just slows it all down when maybe he should be looking the ball from the free to go forward.  One or two lads could do with bulking up to compete against the top level. Once or twice lads nearly ended up in the front row of the stand, although overall the fitness levels looked alright bar one or two who struggled late on. Unfortunately Ryan Bell has looked like that through out his days playing for Derry.  Is he going to be one of those lads everyone says if only about. The equal if not more talent than a McShane.

After seeing a couple of games it's hard to know which is worse the overall standard of Derry football, the standard of refereeing or the lack of discipline or any level of sportsmanship.  Pure dung all round.