Messages

Exactly... As do tyrone!

The person who said they were dirty was a down man being sarcastic. A tyrone man was saying they got a away with a few late hits and asked how the ref would view those. I'd hardly say there was too much wrong with that.

When did down become a dirty team??  I must have missed that one.

They skated close to the edge and over it a few times against Monaghan, but nothing I'd be giving out too much about. Monaghan dish out enough themselves to be deserving of getting it back when it happens.

2 good interviews actually this week. Enda Smith was very good about the win and how they felt with all the critique all year, then Darren Hughes was on and he was just funny. Big broad farmer talking about loving life.

Being from Derry really does inhibit the chances of being vocally appealing!

The GAA hour is great as it's analysis is much more in-depth and covers far more games. For example, OTB only had 16 mins of football review on their GAA football podcast last night

It's not a Derry thing, or even an Ulster thing. (Stevie O'Neill is v good too.) There is just something about his voice. It often comes across as muffled too, as if his microphone is not working properly, or the phone line he is on is not clear.

Young Conan does indeed have a strange voice, but I think he's excellent on the podcast.

I think our overall game benefited hugely the last day because we mainly kicked it long. Whether this was due to Donegal pushing up or not I still can't decide.
I would imagine if Down sit back we will kick it short again and work it up the field.
Down will probably be right in our faces from the off and hope to get off to a good start like Roscommon did against Galway.

I'd much rather see a good tough challenge and them aak questiona of us than an easy win all over by HT

We've been kicking it long all year. In the league this change of tactic was pretty obvious so I wasn't surprised to see it in the championship at all, unlike professional pundits like that clown from Derry.

It didn't work in the league particularly well, but the intention was clear rotating Sean and Mattie up there and even playing the two together. I just wonder was Mickey being a wee bit clever in the league holding back so that he could give it the full impact in the championship.


I don't think this will be an easy win at all. Down will fight for every ball and if they can put up a similar performance to that against Monaghan we'll have to be at our very best to beat them. I still think Tyrone will win by a couple but it won't be a whitewash like some seem to think.

ha, yeah we beat them too last year.

But this was clearly a miles better performance than that.

Cavan have an amazing record but apart from 97 the ulsters were won pre 1960. Most of Monaghan's are very old too. It is interesting that Tyrone have overtaken Down . Thuas seal thíos seal.   I wouldn't be surprised if Down got a result against Monaghan.

Aye, this is a biggie to win too as it'll put us infront of Armagh into 3rd place on our own and only 1 behind Monaghan. We'd still be 22 short of Cavan lol so that might take a while to close the gap!

There's no doubt it was. It could even easily be argued it was the best performance since 2008 given it's really the first time we've beaten a top 4 team in the Championship in that time. Our only other good results since then are against the likes of Kildare and Monaghan.

Yeah barring a complete disaster we'll play the Dubs this year.

If we lose Ulster then we have to play against one of these...Leitrim, London, Carlow, Wexford, Westmeath, Offaly, Clare, Limerick , Tipperary, Down, Armagh, Cavan,  Fermanagh to get the chance to play them in the quarter.

If we win Ulster then  play one of those or Kildare to get to play them in the Semifinal.

There's none of those teams that should really stand any hope against Tyrone apart from maybe this resurgent Kildare. That said I'd rather take my chances against them in a Quarter just to progress that bit deeper.

We've been to 3 semi-finals since we last won an All-ireland, against kerry in 2015, Mayo in 2013 and Cork in 2009. We've not shown up at all in any of those games and I'm sure this panel would love to put that right.

Meh, even f he's back for the semi final he'll not have been full training with the team (at least in public) so for me any game apart from the final will still have that Connolly advantage.

[but there is too much being read into this game]

Yeah but I haven't seen a team as wide open down the middle since the Jason Ryan era. Hard to read anyhting into a match when one team are set up so badly and their heads drop. Tyrone are obviously a good team and will not be far away from competing in September but there is too much being read into this game.
Roscommon had a great league campaign in 2016 and look where they ended up.

I also felt sad seeing one of the great players of this century in Karl Lacey struggle so badly with his legs gone but then again it also looks like he had a hair transplant and I enjoy the suffering of men that vain.

Monaghan should provide a better guage of where Tyrone are at.

I don't think there is really. If anything the response has been pretty measured given the nature of the win. The majority of pundits and posters on social media are saying the same thing, it was a brilliant Tyrone performance and probably the performance of the year so far from any team, but it comes with two huge asterisk, 1) Donegal were very poor on the day and that has to be taken into account, and 2) It's still only June so any good performance is in the context of us not even having had a full round of qualifiers or a single provincial final yet. 

Yes it was great, yes it probably elevates us into 3rd most likely to win an all-ireland given Mayo and Donegals failures, but it still leaves us with no idea how we'll do against Dublin or Kerry in Croke Park. That's where we've failed so often the last 5 years and that's the real test.

Can't argue with the prediction for the Ulster and Leinster sides of the draw. It'll be...

Dublin vs Ulster Loser
Ulster Winner vs Kildare

As I think Tyrone will win the Ulster final then it'll be Dublin vs Monaghan and Tyrone Vs Kildare. There's no-one in that side fo the qualifiers good enough to get through to a quarter final other than the provincial losers.

As for the other side of the draw, I think Mayo and Donegal will have something to say about the quarter finals yet, Mayo especially. How often have Mayo looked poor early only to ramp up as the year goes on.

He had a poor enough game but he's got more than enough credit in the bank to be allowed the odd one. He was excellent against Derry. He's also in there now for free taking and that wasn't shown on Sunday because we only got two scoring frees all game iirc.

Colm Parkinson has a very good podcast on joe.ie.

Yeah that's the GAA hour one I mentioned. IMO it's by a distance the best one out there. Great guests and the pundits actually like football which is a pleasant change. I really enjoy the Derry lad Conan.

The mark has worked brilliantly much to my surprise. It has worked so well that I would extend it to allow a mark for any kick pass of 40m caught cleanly. It would be a way of breaking down the blanket defences ie long passes into the full forward caught cleanly would be rewarded with the opportunity of a shot at goal rather than having 3 or 4 men surrounding the forward immediately.

That is too much of a change to the game for me. I love the mark as it is now, but bringing it in for open play is taking the game too close to Aussie rules and will completely change the game.

The blanket defense is gone already and teams have already sussed how to beat it. Scoring is massively up on games 10 years ago and even further up on games 20 years ago. There's already very effective tactics for beating the blanket and it's being used expertly by the good sides.