Man to Man Marking

[highorlow]

It appears from all the games under the new rules that the days of zone / zonal defence are dead and will only get teams so far?

Is it a case next year that the teams that go man to man marking stand a better chance?

I reckon if Donegal did this on Sunday they had a better chance and it would've made for a better spectacle. They sacrificed a key strength in setting up defensively and that was their turnovers.

[Captain Scarlet]

You need to be tighter definitely but a smart set up can drop a sweeper in.
The issue is lads are too used to shadowing. Everyone is raving about Rafferty from Meath but back in the day most teams had 2 or 3 lads like him.

The craic of lining up and not engaging is surely on tge way out.

[bringbackdregish]

Bring back good old man to man gameplay.

This zonal carryon makes me want to rip my hair out at times watching it. Men marking space I've never seen the likes.

Some use it done Donegal at the weekend anyway, Paudi was let rule the roost, not a man near him.

[Armagh18]

Would need to be a change in refereeing for this to work. Slightest contact these days at times is free and forwards are getting away with 7-8 steps. Haven't a hope of getting a man stopped 1v1 like that. 

[highorlow]

We, Mayo, did it as well, a disaster for us and actually the opposite of what we are half decent at. Dublin the same.

Donegal made Kerry look better than they are, I didn't see the Meath / Kerry match so I'm not sure what kinda way the Meath lads set up, I'm sure Jimmy McGuinness watched the tape before Sunday though.

Hopefully with our new manager we will go back to it. Obviously a decent midfield and half back line are needed.

Donegal management will be kicking themselves this week, there was a spell in the match where they were actually on top and won a few turnovers and got the match back to 4 points but missed a handy chance to get it to 3, you could see the heads dropping on the DG players after that shot went wide, that was that then.

[highorlow]

Would need to be a change in refereeing for this to work. Slightest contact these days at times is free and forwards are getting away with 7-8 steps. Haven't a hope of getting a man stopped 1v1 like that. 

Ya, depends on the ref as well, need refs that are more biased to defenders. It's a sort of press out the field moreso, some club lads I spoke to said (and that this was under the old rules) is that you can't do a full on press or chase the opposition for the whole match as you'd be gassed after 40 minutes, so under the faster new rules I can see where a "containment" strategy is part of the plan. For the last ten minutes of the 1st half on Sunday I was surprised that the Donegal lads didn't chase Kerry like men possessed and gamble to get turnovers.

Sometimes managers are very over rated, it's a simple game really.

[lurganblue]

We might be over doing it here. I suspect it'll still continue to be a hybrid of both man marking and zonal. The new rules have definitely bumped up the need for more man markers. 

Teams will have to look seriously at how they can engage and create turnovers. They'll have to also look at how they can gain primary possession because that was really the Kerry ace card. They take possession time after time and strangle the game.

[thebigfullforward]

Must be the only one that enjoys seeing different styles of play. People complained about teams all playing the same way under the old rules and then rant about teams not playing the same way lol. Seems to me like people just want to see teams go man to man and kick it into a 5'9 full forward every time. I like watching teams play with different setups

[twohands!!!]

Would need to be a change in refereeing for this to work. Slightest contact these days at times is free and forwards are getting away with 7-8 steps. Haven't a hope of getting a man stopped 1v1 like that. 

Ya, depends on the ref as well, need refs that are more biased to defenders. It's a sort of press out the field moreso, some club lads I spoke to said (and that this was under the old rules) is that you can't do a full on press or chase the opposition for the whole match as you'd be gassed after 40 minutes, so under the faster new rules I can see where a "containment" strategy is part of the plan. For the last ten minutes of the 1st half on Sunday I was surprised that the Donegal lads didn't chase Kerry like men possessed and gamble to get turnovers.

Sometimes managers are very over rated, it's a simple game really.

I think a large part of this was Donegal were afraid of pushing out, getting beaten and Kerry creating goal chances. I think this is why Kerry were able to create so many good two-pointer shooting chances; by comparison Kerry seemed to do a far better job of restricting Donegal's two-pointer chances around the arc. A lot of folk seemed to be saying why didn't Donegal take on more two-pointers - for me it looked like Kerry did a far better job of restricting Donegal's two pointer chances even at the expense of giving up more in the way of one pointer chances from inside the arc.

There was a fair bit of talk about how much possession Paudie Clifford had but what was fair more relevant was the amount of times he has possession and how little he was turned over for possession. Haven't watched the game back did see the Sunday Game highlights but I can't recall him losing possession and I do recall him going past a fair few Donegal players over the course of the match. The most memorable time Donegal won possession was probably the time David Clifford got turned over when it was a three-on-one situation. I'd say it would be interesting to watch the game back and look at how both sides won their turnovers.

[tyrone08]

You need to be tighter definitely but a smart set up can drop a sweeper in.
The issue is lads are too used to shadowing. Everyone is raving about Rafferty from Meath but back in the day most teams had 2 or 3 lads like him.

The craic of lining up and not engaging is surely on tge way out.

The amount of defenders who "shadow" by that I mean run alongside a forward without putting a hand in is crazy. Every game you see defenders too afraid to try and actually win the ball. The tackle does need better defined so that both the refs and players know what actually is allowed.

One thing I don't want to see is Gaelic turning into basketball where is just constant scoring. Defending is an art and in my opinion seeing a diving block is just as good as seeing a 2 point score.

[twohands!!!]

You need to be tighter definitely but a smart set up can drop a sweeper in.
The issue is lads are too used to shadowing. Everyone is raving about Rafferty from Meath but back in the day most teams had 2 or 3 lads like him.

The craic of lining up and not engaging is surely on tge way out.

The amount of defenders who "shadow" by that I mean run alongside a forward without putting a hand in is crazy. Every game you see defenders too afraid to try and actually win the ball. The tackle does need better defined so that both the refs and players know what actually is allowed.

One thing I don't want to see is Gaelic turning into basketball where is just constant scoring. Defending is an art and in my opinion seeing a diving block is just as good as seeing a 2 point score.

I mean Kerry had a number of good blocks and interceptions throughout the game; so I don't think there's any danger of defending disappearing any time soon.

[tyrone08]

You need to be tighter definitely but a smart set up can drop a sweeper in.
The issue is lads are too used to shadowing. Everyone is raving about Rafferty from Meath but back in the day most teams had 2 or 3 lads like him.

The craic of lining up and not engaging is surely on tge way out.

The amount of defenders who "shadow" by that I mean run alongside a forward without putting a hand in is crazy. Every game you see defenders too afraid to try and actually win the ball. The tackle does need better defined so that both the refs and players know what actually is allowed.

One thing I don't want to see is Gaelic turning into basketball where is just constant scoring. Defending is an art and in my opinion seeing a diving block is just as good as seeing a 2 point score.

I mean Kerry had a number of good blocks and interceptions throughout the game; so I don't think there's any danger of defending disappearing any time soon.

They were one of the few teams. Tyrone are criminal for it. Donegal barely laid a hand on a Kerry man.

[Armagh18]

We might be over doing it here. I suspect it'll still continue to be a hybrid of both man marking and zonal. The new rules have definitely bumped up the need for more man markers. 

Teams will have to look seriously at how they can engage and create turnovers. They'll have to also look at how they can gain primary possession because that was really the Kerry ace card. They take possession time after time and strangle the game.

Yeah thats the key, I thought Donegal with Langan etc round the middle would dominate there, then again I thought the same about Armagh.

[twohands!!!]

You need to be tighter definitely but a smart set up can drop a sweeper in.
The issue is lads are too used to shadowing. Everyone is raving about Rafferty from Meath but back in the day most teams had 2 or 3 lads like him.

The craic of lining up and not engaging is surely on tge way out.

The amount of defenders who "shadow" by that I mean run alongside a forward without putting a hand in is crazy. Every game you see defenders too afraid to try and actually win the ball. The tackle does need better defined so that both the refs and players know what actually is allowed.

One thing I don't want to see is Gaelic turning into basketball where is just constant scoring. Defending is an art and in my opinion seeing a diving block is just as good as seeing a 2 point score.

I think a large part of this is that players had become so reliant on using the 2nd defender and sometimes even 3rd player in to force a turnover. You could basically see players thinking hold-up/delay/stop the player's forward movement and because of how deep teams were set up defensively a second player is going to be close enough that they will be in within seconds to force the turnover. This wasn't helped by the fact that refs/the rules seemed to give so much leeway to the defending team in that basically all they had to do to force the turnover was surround the player in possession. So many turnovers were won by just surrounding the player in possession and simply not letting them play the ball away. This required little to no actual skill but was just based on the athletic ability to get close to the player in possession quickly. It's really not a surprise to see a number of players lack of actual defensive skills being badly exposed in relation to this.

[2ndstringsub]

You need to be tighter definitely but a smart set up can drop a sweeper in.
The issue is lads are too used to shadowing. Everyone is raving about Rafferty from Meath but back in the day most teams had 2 or 3 lads like him.

The craic of lining up and not engaging is surely on tge way out.

The amount of defenders who "shadow" by that I mean run alongside a forward without putting a hand in is crazy. Every game you see defenders too afraid to try and actually win the ball. The tackle does need better defined so that both the refs and players know what actually is allowed.

One thing I don't want to see is Gaelic turning into basketball where is just constant scoring. Defending is an art and in my opinion seeing a diving block is just as good as seeing a 2 point score.

I think a large part of this is that players had become so reliant on using the 2nd defender and sometimes even 3rd player in to force a turnover. You could basically see players thinking hold-up/delay/stop the player's forward movement and because of how deep teams were set up defensively a second player is going to be close enough that they will be in within seconds to force the turnover. This wasn't helped by the fact that refs/the rules seemed to give so much leeway to the defending team in that basically all they had to do to force the turnover was surround the player in possession. So many turnovers were won by just surrounding the player in possession and simply not letting them play the ball away. This required little to no actual skill but was just based on the athletic ability to get close to the player in possession quickly. It's really not a surprise to see a number of players lack of actual defensive skills being badly exposed in relation to this.

2 of the biggest scourges on the game and i've said this for long before this "new" game.

Steps and throwing the ball. tidy up the refereeing around those two rules and you create space for defenders to tackle far too much of the game is sided towards the player with the ball.