Tyrone vs Mayo AISF Semi-Final - August 25th

[blewuporstuffed]

I think Harte should stay on, but i would like to see someone like Horse Devlin taking over the U21s as well as staying involved in the senior set up.
It might give a bit more continuity to the whole thing and help bring teh new talent through.

[Fuzzman]

In a very short period Mickey had indeed brought in a lot of fresh faces and kept us very competitive
Who would have thought after 2010 that we'd be back in a Div 1 final and get to the AI semis.
Unlike many other teams such as Armagh or Down, we seem to get to the quarterfinals now almost every year. Mickey has been replacing players consistently over the past 10 years as he says himself.
Gormley & Stevie are the only 2 possible/likely retirements I would suspect.
I think we have the players there if they were all fit but I just hope that Mickey stays on but changes his outlook of how we should play the game. If the Dubs win it this year playing the way they do I think we could say another change in direction. I sure hope so.

[rrhf]

I think Harte should stay on, but i would like to see someone like Horse Devlin taking over the U21s as well as staying involved in the senior set up.
It might give a bit more continuity to the whole thing and help bring teh new talent through.

I like the cut of yer jib.  I think as a county we need to have a handover plan. I think of all aspects the experience Horse will have taken on board this year will be invaluable. There needs to be a new team built at under 21 level and minors as well who can bring us on.  I think we will need all new faces with many of our 2000s personalities featuring.   

[EC Unique]

I think Harte should stay on, but i would like to see someone like Horse Devlin taking over the U21s as well as staying involved in the senior set up.
It might give a bit more continuity to the whole thing and help bring teh new talent through.

This.  The U21s need more effort put into them and have a direct link to the senior setup. We have got to a league final and an AI Semi and there are the usual predictable crys for a change. I think he should have the job for as long as he wants it as nobody bar none could do better with the (average) squad available to him. There is good youth coming through and an AI winning team is not that far away.

[rrhf]

Id like to see Gormley one more year but i could see Stevie Packie, Justin, Penrose, and a few others leaving from the panel. A major disappointment for me this year was those he let go from the previous year being replaced by more bench fodder.  In an all ireland semi final you want a bench you can play.  Id also like to see a new game plan developed for the resources we have, I dont mind if that is with Harte or without, but Id prefer him to stay on if he can do that job for Tyrone football which must be put first.  That should be the motivation of us all.

[bluenosebandit]

here here rrhf. Tyrone need to overhaul their style of play, far too laborious in their build, too many good forwards forced to carry out defensive duties. And as you rightly point out, too much fodder on the bench. No-one to come into the game to change it or inject energy into the game. I think we are seriously devoid of a target man at full oforward, as hand on heart, i think every single full back he came up against got the better of o'neill this year. I think we need s cavanagh at full forward with skeet and mccurry either side, coney pulling he strings at 11, get other teams worrying about us instead of us worrying about our defence all the time and as a result employing negative tactics.

On a small aside, what must that do to ronan oneills confidence coming on as a sub to be taken off??the absolute curse for any footballer, unless he was hurt???

[EC Unique]

here here rrhf. Tyrone need to overhaul their style of play, far too laborious in their build, too many good forwards forced to carry out defensive duties. And as you rightly point out, too much fodder on the bench. No-one to come into the game to change it or inject energy into the game. I think we are seriously devoid of a target man at full oforward, as hand on heart, i think every single full back he came up against got the better of o'neill this year. I think we need s cavanagh at full forward with skeet and mccurry either side, coney pulling he strings at 11, get other teams worrying about us instead of us worrying about our defence all the time and as a result employing negative tactics.

On a small aside, what must that do to ronan oneills confidence coming on as a sub to be taken off??the absolute curse for any footballer, unless he was hurt???

I take it you just watch Championship football then?

[screenexile]

here here rrhf. Tyrone need to overhaul their style of play, far too laborious in their build, too many good forwards forced to carry out defensive duties. And as you rightly point out, too much fodder on the bench. No-one to come into the game to change it or inject energy into the game. I think we are seriously devoid of a target man at full oforward, as hand on heart, i think every single full back he came up against got the better of o'neill this year. I think we need s cavanagh at full forward with skeet and mccurry either side, coney pulling he strings at 11, get other teams worrying about us instead of us worrying about our defence all the time and as a result employing negative tactics.

On a small aside, what must that do to ronan oneills confidence coming on as a sub to be taken off??the absolute curse for any footballer, unless he was hurt???

I take it you just watch Championship football then?

In all honesty what use were Stevie O'Neill's performances in the league this year? If you don't perform in the Championship then it's been a poor season!

[bluenosebandit]

Exactly, no-one cares about the league, steven oneill had a brilliant league campaign, donegal were relegated, didnt do him one bit of good when neil mcgee got a hold of him in ballybofey. And if Dublin lose this sunday their players wont reflect on it as a good year as they won the league.

You cant live in the past and eulogise over how good steven oneill was and used to be, fact is, in the championship this year he was poor. Does he lead by example as a captain?

[EC Unique]

He scares the shit out of full back lines and makes runs to take defenders away leaving more room for the other forwards around him. All of the managers seen fit to have him double marked and at times triple marked so they obviously rate him highly. I would like to see him stay but maybe not as a starter. A FF line next year of Coney, McCurry and Ronan O Neill might be an option.

[Walter Cronc]

He scares the shit out of full back lines and makes runs to take defenders away leaving more room for the other forwards around him. All of the managers seen fit to have him double marked and at times triple marked so they obviously rate him highly. I would like to see him stay but maybe not as a starter. A FF line next year of Coney, McCurry and Ronan O Neill might be an option.

Too light a ff line if you ask me. No ball winning ability apart from Mc Aliskey. Lets see how O'Neill and Coney perform in a full league programme before assuming both are the answer to Tyrone's problems!

[Knock Yer Mucker In]

He scares the shit out of full back lines and makes runs to take defenders away leaving more room for the other forwards around him. All of the managers seen fit to have him double marked and at times triple marked so they obviously rate him highly. I would like to see him stay but maybe not as a starter. A FF line next year of Coney, McCurry and Ronan O Neill might be an option.

O'Neill isn't reliable enough any more, only because he is always crrying an injury at championship. BTW how you didn't mention Mc Aliskey in your front three puzzles me, Coney suffers from lack of genuine pace and is a bit windy, Mc Curry can't go pass men at that level and RON may make it, but hopefully will. Mc Aliskey had done more this season than the rest and you just choose to ignore him, must be an Errigal thing, because Mickey tried his best to ignore him but couldn't as skeet just wouldn't go away.

[EC Unique]

He scares the shit out of full back lines and makes runs to take defenders away leaving more room for the other forwards around him. All of the managers seen fit to have him double marked and at times triple marked so they obviously rate him highly. I would like to see him stay but maybe not as a starter. A FF line next year of Coney, McCurry and Ronan O Neill might be an option.

O'Neill isn't reliable enough any more, only because he is always crrying an injury at championship. BTW how you didn't mention Mc Aliskey in your front three puzzles me, Coney suffers from lack of genuine pace and is a bit windy, Mc Curry can't go pass men at that level and RON may make it, but hopefully will. Mc Aliskey had done more this season than the rest and you just choose to ignore him, must be an Errigal thing, because Mickey tried his best to ignore him but couldn't as skeet just wouldn't go away.

I did not ignore him. I just think the other 3 have more potential and raw talent. The definitely will be a job for McAliskey over the next few years as more than 3 will be needed and he is a great player. Can he play anywhere else other than the FF line?

[nrico2006]

I would hope that Coney gets a run at it injury free, as well as the rest.  Coney was brilliant in the league last season before injury.  I would like to see him establish himself at number 11 to be honest, think thats where he could really make a difference.  He has great vision as well as score taking ability.  As for SON, I said even at the time of the league that he wouldn't light up the championship purely because he would be double marked in any game he played or carrying injuries.  It happened that he missed a few championship games through injury as well as being double marked and wrestled throughout most games he played. 

[supersarsfields]

Haven't posted since the game. Despite knowing that Mayo were the better team, and that they were bookies favourites by a long way for a reason, it's still gutting to be out. It was obvious from roughly when O'Neill went of that Mayo had gotten to grips with Tyrone and were now in full flow. That Tyrone team are no slouches, but at times the Mayo boys were making some of that Tyrone team look like they were running in syrup. They have really built up an unbelievable  fitness which they've coupled to a drive and intensity that I don't think Dublin or Kerry will be able to match (OR at least I hope they don't).
Tyrone had two big losses in personel. While some may think O'Neill hasn't been great he's been occupying opponent's defenders in a way that neither RON or Coney were going to be able to. I'm not surprised that Mayo started breaking better from defence once he had gone of. Mayo obviously had their loss in this area as well and as a recipitent of about 8 shoulder dislocations myself I hope O'Connor's isn't too bad. But unfortunately it's one of these injuries that can reoccur regularly. I'm assuming he's not going to be right for the final?
I was surprised at the lack of impact by the Donnellys. Before hand I actually thought these two would be two of the main players for Tyrone, but they both seemed to run out of steam. Which again showed the running and intensity of Mayo, as these two covered some serious ground in previous games. 
Defence wise, Gormely as always was good and McGinley really impressed me. Clarke over all had a good year and I expect him to progress into a key player over the next few years. There is no doubt about it Morgan was a big loss. Free kicks and kick outs were vital yesterday when trying to keep the ball away from the O'Shea's. And Packie just doesn't have the same level of accuracy.
But over all, it was a good year and there's plenty there for Tyrone to work with over the next few years. We stepped it up this year a bit from where a lot of people would have predicted we would have been at, and for me that's progress. If we can continue to do the same next year then who knows.


Meant to say, I wish Mayo all the best for the final, and I really hope they go on to win it. Great team.