Tyrone vs Mayo AISF Semi-Final - August 25th

[give her dixie]

I know Stephenite is waiting on my big game prediction and has locked in a Qantas booking for the weekend after the one Tony Fearon would book.

Mayo will struggle to get out of the Tyrone blocks for a long time tomorrow. Most of the first half will be played outside the Tyrone 45m line. I think Hennelly will play a part here if he starts hitting long range frees.

In the 2nd half I feel if we click then start to open out a lead, then Tyrone will have to come out to play. After that it will be game on and if Tyrone get the important scores they could win. But that would be desperation stuff, and if all that happens we could really kick on as we have been doing.

I am predicting a 6-8 point win for a Mayo team pulling away after a very difficult first 25 -35 minutes.

Well I'm going for after 20 mins, Mayo 1.03 Tyrone 0.02. Half-time Mayo 3.08 Tyrone 0.06. Full Time Mayo 4.14 Tyrone 0.13

That's the drink talking ..........................

Brilliant thing is, if its' way off, it was the drink, if its' close I am an Oracle.

I'm sure it's worth a tenner, and sure if it pays out, you will have some weekend in late September !!!

[caraghtyrone]

If this was the case.....why would the headline for the preview of the game in the regional weekly paper read something like...County Players rally the support?...and then remarks in the interview of...things arent like 03/05/08...seems like supporters have.....?
Seems your Donegal friends are misinformed....never seen it so quiet embarrassing too be honest....

On the game....we are up against it I believe but although a shade of our great teams, the boys have done very well in transition and there could be a game in us and with MH in charge no doubt theres a trick up his sleeve (I hope) cos Mayo do look good and anyone that knows me Ive been complimenting them since James Horan took over and comparing him to Peter Canavan in that your boys would play for him like no other and respect him to take them to another level..hence what we seen so far..also I always finished that statement with....Mayo will win an all ireland within the next 2 yrs...Tyrone on the otherhand have a bench that worries me and therefore if we dont perform to our best which is at least 33% better than anything this yr then we will be over run and could lose by 5-10 pts..

Hope its a great game with Tyrone winning by 2 pts 1-14 to 2-9 lol

All slagging aside, I was delighted for Tyronies everywhere when you finally won Sam. I'd say most GAA fans everywhere felt the same. 'Tis said that God loves a trier  and  he, whoever he is, must have relented a bit to let Peter Canavan finally get his hands on a Celtic Cross.
Tyrone had certainly been trying hard for many years and never lost hope.
I'd say Tyrone followers must have felt every bit as sick after the '95 final as we were after the '96 one. Like us, you shower have had a lot more dinner times than dinners but you did nail Sam in the end.
Tyrone were very popular winners and the fact that they beat Kerry along the way earned them even more respect. Stuff Pat Spillane and his "Puke Football;" it was the moaning of a sore loser.
The fact is that Armagh supporters were starting to give everyone outside their county a bit of a pain in the arse.
Tony Fearons, every last one of them!
Fair enough, it took Tyrone followers a bit longer to start blowing their coal but when they did, they sure did it in style. The controversy over the selection of the team of the decade did them no favours either.
Anyone who thinks I'm piss-taking can use the search function on this board and check out some of the threads around '09/'10 and see if I'm on a windup or not.
Like Armagh after 2002 or Clare hurlers in the mid-90s, neutral support began to wane fast.
If 99.5% of the rest of the country are hoping for Mayo win, it isn't because they all like Aidan O'Shea's haircut.
FFS, lenny says Tyrone is awash with hype and nobody has yet written in to deny this. A couple of Donegal folk who pass through the county regularly tell me the place is awash with hype and arrogance. I've no problem at all with that; why not have a bit of craic whenever we can?
But, you'd think going by the moaning going on here that Mayo have a patent on the art of begrudgery.
I think Mayo will win but if they're beaten fair and square, I'll wish Tyrone good luck for the final. I feel most Mayo heads feel the same way and I haven't come across any remotely serious post here that claims Mayo will annihilate Tyrone.
So what's the caterwauling going on here all about

[mayogodhelpus@gmail.com]

Mayo 130,638
Galway 250,541
Roscommon 64,065
Sligo 65,393
Leitrim 31,798
London 15,010,295
New York 18,897,109

hup Connacht ;-)

[Farrandeelin]

What kind of crowd is expected tomorrow, I've heard 50,000 but I also heard they're expecting 70,000 which would be a massive crowd for a semi without the Dubs?

Could be 40,000 travelling up from the West if all those I heard are heading up.

Safe travelling to all Mayo and Tyrone fans today. Absolutely massive Mayo support for this one.

[seafoid]

Much-maligned Tyrone still a force to be reckoned with

Keith Duggan

Brian McGuigan knew what he was doing. This was maybe an hour after Tyrone had won the All-Ireland championship for the third time in six years. Croke Park was already shadowed, the litter half collected and autumn had pounced on the capital, as it always does when the last September whistle sounds.

The Ardboe man, who had come in to not so much participate as orchestrate the closing symphony of the 2008 final was ushered into the press room to give his thoughts. He addressed the contentious debate of the day without even being asked. "Tyrone are the team of the decade," he said flatly. "There. That's it."

He was grinning mischievously when he said it. He was just doing it to annoy them. Shaking a bit of salt.

"Them" means the vague, shifting coalition which Tyrone football people believe has never been happy with them since they had the audacity to start winning All-Irelands. It goes back that infamous remark. "Puke football." When Pat Spillane said it, shortly after watching a Tyrone team harangue and hassle gilded Kerry men in a furious All-Ireland football semi-final, (which, it could be argued, changed the direction of Gaelic football), it was out of frustration more than malice.

The Kerry great was nothing if not vexed after that game a decade ago.

But it wasn't what was said that mattered as much as the fact that he was the person saying it. This was Spillane!
Didn't he understand what it was to live in Ballygawley, in Cookstown, in Carrickmore during those decades when the bombs went off without warning and the wet country lanes were treacherous and to watch on television the sensational way Kerry played the game? Didn't he ever consider how much they used to marvel at the ease with which all of them – Spillane, Sheehy, Egan – kicked a ball?

Stopped hurting

So when the day came when Tyrone finally strode the stage with the masters and won, it hurt that one of the gods of the Kerry machine had dismissed their achievement. It has never stopped hurting.

Flash forward a decade. Much has since happened to and for Tyrone. Their emergence has been defined by a well-documented trail of sorrow, from the deaths of Tyrone minor Paul McGirr in 1997, the success of the 1998 minor team in the wake of the Omagh bombing, the death of Cormac McAnallen in the winter after Tyrone's first All-Ireland success and most recently, the death of Michaela Harte. Theirs has been a hard -earned glory. It has been about mental resilience and faith as much as the dash and irrepressible form with which they played.

It is half forgotten now that when they met their neighbours Armagh – then the reigning champions – in the All-Ireland final of 2003, the purists didn't bother hiding their dismay at the prospect of an all-Ulster big day out. The final from hell!
As it happened, it was gripping until the last seconds: after both counties struggled for provincial gold, it took them just 12 months to match each other on the national stage. Armagh were unlucky not to win another All-Ireland.

But Tyrone were only just beginning. Within two years, they had perfected a new brand of football, with a drifting defence pouncing on hesitant play, intuitively attacking wing backs, a marauding midfield and a brilliant set of forwards.

They were the exception to the sporting cliché that you can't turn form on like a light switch. Tyrone could. So often they seemed to respond to some interior hidden signal and just turn the big stadium incandescent with the quality of their play.

At their best, their play has been scintillating. They have abrasive characters. They have defenders who like to like to get in the ear of their opponents, who niggle, get under your skin. They have players of undiluted class.

They have been involved in some brilliant and some ugly games down the years. They have players who live on the edge. The animosity experienced by the Donegal players when they played Tyrone in the league this year set them up for their opening championship game this summer. But the effort that they expended in beating Tyrone may have killed Donegal's summer.

Tyrone looked shambolic by the end of that match in May, their winter's work and best ambitions blown apart and out of the Ulster championship. But the Red Hand did what they do; they knuckled down and started winning qualifying games in their understated fashion. Nobody, remember, paid them too much attention until they met Dublin in the All-Ireland quarter final of 2008. Then, that light switch.

Best player
Now, they find themselves back in the last four of the All-Ireland at odds with the world. Seán Cavanagh, the best player of his generation, was, indirectly and otherwise, labelled a cheat for his tackle late in the quarter-final against Monaghan. One thing that was never mentioned about that tackle was how safely it was executed.

Donegal manager Jim McGuinness was accused of gamesmanship for articulating his annoyance at a challenge which left one of his players unable to remember anything about the game. Cavanagh's tackle was deliberate and methodical but it was one of the least dangerous challenges of the season. And he was pilloried.

Mickey Harte still isn't speaking with RTÉ in a stand-off going back several years now. People who wonder when Harte might end his silence might recall how long he spent in isolation from his own club over a small but vital matter of principle. "Never" is a good bet. Tyrone football people believe that media pundits in RTÉ and elsewhere feel empowered to level any accusation at their team. Sure it's only 'Throne'. If you stand where they stand, it is hard to disagree with them. Just because you're paranoid and all that.....

Tyrone do not have the same quality as the side which won its last All-Ireland in such shimmering fashion. They have lost the genius of McGuigan for a start. So much is gone, from the workaholic brilliance that Brian Dooher provided to the punkish excitement which Owen Mulligan brought to the attack. And yet, here they are. Ten years later. They haven't gone away and they have lost none of the edge. Harte is, unquestionably, one of the greatest football coaches the game has known. And there is a strong argument to be made that constructing yet another team capable of making it this far in the All-Ireland championship must rank as one of his finest achievements.

It shouldn't be forgotten that Tyrone will run onto the field tomorrow with a sprinkling of proven All-Ireland winners at all grades. They possess the hauteur of former champions. A decade after their emergence, they are still outside the establishment and will never be national darlings. But when they turn it on, watch out.

http://www.irishtimes.com/sport/much-maligned-tyrone-still-a-force-to-be-reckoned-with-1.1503863?page=1

meeja check
won all irelands check
Mickey Harte is very good check
still in it check
nobody loves us check

But he doesn't sound very convinced.

It's a big ask for Throne today. 

[Rois]

I'm getting up and ready to hit the road to Dublin. I don't have the usual sickly nervousness as I'm not expecting to come home elated. I'd just love not to be annihilated like Donegal.
We need everyone to have a big game, and unfortunately Mayo don't have that need. But as someone said a good few pages back, it is a two horse race, and it is possible that one of the horses could fall.

[phpearse]

Prior to the league final I would have been happy just to put in a performance and keep Dublin close. Following the match there was a felling of one that got away. Today I'm just hoping that Tyrone don't get tanked and hopefully if they can compete and have a chance to win that they don't leave it behind them. Niall Morgan was a big plus in the league final and slotted over 4-5 long range frees and kept Tyrone ticking over in that game. His different style of kick outs gave Tyrone options and I feel that his absence will be felt more today that the other games. McConnell's short kick outs are very short and with Mayo tacking hard from the full forward line out, I'm not sure if that will be the best option today. Morgan would be able to place a kick to a man running into space 45m from goal.

Just can't see Tyrone getting close. Mayo by 7.

[AQMP]

Tyrone still haven't produced a big, big performance this year.  Could it be today...?

If not, it's Mayo by 5 or 6.

Anyway, feck this big ball cynical rugby tackling shite, the big story of the weekend is the Antrim U21 hurlers!  Can Tyrone take inspiration from the 12/1 outsiders?

[Rois]

Hope you have the tickets in HS - I even typed my reference no into phone just in case, all because of you.

[rodney trotter]

Hopefully none of the Cynical stuff but that would be asking for too much.

[charlie linkbox]

May Tyrone get beaten out the gate and may they get a flat tyre on the way home. 

[muppet]

I know Stephenite is waiting on my big game prediction and has locked in a Qantas booking for the weekend after the one Tony Fearon would book.

Mayo will struggle to get out of the Tyrone blocks for a long time tomorrow. Most of the first half will be played outside the Tyrone 45m line. I think Hennelly will play a part here if he starts hitting long range frees.

In the 2nd half I feel if we click then start to open out a lead, then Tyrone will have to come out to play. After that it will be game on and if Tyrone get the important scores they could win. But that would be desperation stuff, and if all that happens we could really kick on as we have been doing.

I am predicting a 6-8 point win for a Mayo team pulling away after a very difficult first 25 -35 minutes.

Well I'm going for after 20 mins, Mayo 1.03 Tyrone 0.02. Half-time Mayo 3.08 Tyrone 0.06. Full Time Mayo 4.14 Tyrone 0.13

That's the drink talking ..........................

Yip.

Apparently it knows more about football than I do.

[Aaron Boone]

This Mayo team could be team of the decade.

[omagh_gael]

This Mayo team could be are the team of the decade.

Seriously, hope it is a great game today, may the best team win. Hopefully there is no controversy and if Mayo win out I will be cheering them on in the final.

[Zulu]

It's been going around for the week but I'm not sure if it's true.