Team Selection

[gortnaleck]

I was just wondering how one goes about picking a team nowadays.It used to be all about positions but that seems to have all changed.Do you pick a goalie ,a midfielder,two forwards,and the rest defenders who you just match up to the opposition of the day.Do you pick the same guy each day to mark the other teams best scorer.What's the story lads ?

[Zulu]

You pick the best team available to you. Simple as that.

[moysider]

What ? Jaysus Gort have you got a job managing a team? A goalie is recommended . Better to pick a team in a formation that suits what you have at your disposal and if you know the opposition and can get advantageous match-ups, all the better. But remember a team evolves and things change. And always keep a record of selections cause yuo lll look back and say ' what de f**k was i thinkin pickin him there?'

[BallyhaiseMan]

                                           Goalkeeper

Corner Back                           Full Back                           Corner Back
                         <<<<<<Wing Forward >>>>>>>

Wing Back                          Centre Back                         Wing Back

             Midfield                  Wing Forward             Midfield         

                                        Centre Forward

           Corner Forward                                     Corner Forward

                                       Full Forward                           

[Uladh]

Its amazing how everyone who writes out a team with altered forward positions in mind always includes their own defence in perfect formation

[BallyhaiseMan]

Its amazing how everyone who writes out a team with altered forward positions in mind always includes their own defence in perfect formation

wouldnt say that, sometimes you can drop your wing back or centre back in front of your full back line and cover his position off by a forward returning. I believe QArmagh used to do it to great affect with Kieran McGeeney.
and Tyrone used to do it with Gavin Devlin.

That would just be my favourite way to play i posted.

[Pangurban]

Its this type of so called tactical selection that is killing football, it is all total nonsense, the conventional line-up, tried and tested will outlive this current silly fad

[brokencrossbar1]

Its this type of so called tactical selection that is killing football, it is all total nonsense, the conventional line-up, tried and tested will outlive this current silly fad

I don't know whether it is a silly fad as you put it but there have been different tactical formations for years.  Kerry did it with Spillane being the ultimate puke footballer playing that roving role. The team I coach we play a variation of this.  We wouldn't play a strict 3 man midfield but more a 4 man half forward line.  We have a number of players who can play in any of the half forward positions and they interchange.  All are extremely fit and capable on the ball.  We have a very quick full forward line who can cover the space in there very easily.  The player that plays the loose role has played midfield for us and the county u-21's but he can get bogged down too much and we lose out on his creativity.

Generally we keep our back line very stable.  We have only made 1 consistent change and have kept the full back line the same in all big games.  The last line is crucial and unless one is getting roasted we trust them to see the game out.

So it would look something like this

                                         Goalkeeper

Corner Back                           Full Back                           Corner Back
                         

Wing Back                          Centre Back                         Wing Back

             Midfield                                                        Midfield     
     

                                         Wing Forward     
             

    Corner Forward                   Centre Forward              Wing Forward     


         
                                       Full Forward                Corner Forward       

We do not have a big midfield but we have one player who is great defensively and he sits in front of the CHB while the other would be the engine.  Both can win their own ball and can pick a nice pass.                                         

[Davitt Man]

Play to your own strengths, not someone else's
By Paidi O Se


Sunday June 01 2008

IMITATION, not innovation, seems to be the watchword of modern-day management. A team wins an All-Ireland with a certain system and the following year it's all the rage as a dozen or more inter-county teams -- not to mention countless club teams up and down the country -- try to copy it.

It's a bone of contention with me as to why managers now feel the need to complicate things. Gaelic football is a simple game and looking to copy a successful system used by someone else fails the most basic of tests: have you the players to implement it? Managers lose sight of the fact that very often a system is introduced to suit the players available, not the other way round. Copycats take note.

Take Tyrone as an example. People know my views on the type of football they played on the way to winning two All-Irelands: I will never get used to seeing Brian Dooher and maybe two more forwards foraging relentlessly in their own full-back line.

At the risk of sounding like I'm a man from a bygone era, I always understood that the backs' job was to stop scores from being scored and the forwards' job was to get or make scores. Now, half-forwards are retreating deeper and deeper and we've already had some examples of that in the first few weeks of this year's championship in Westmeath and Fermanagh.

Having said that, though, I would be the first to recognise that Tyrone played to their strengths and did so with great focus and energy. What Dooher did was leave an ocean of space further forward and spearheaded his team's attempts to move the ball in numbers out of defence. One half of the field would be crowded, the other a vast open space and this was the scenario they were happy to create.

But the point is the likes of Dooher and others were exceptionally strong in the tackle and in possession, could run all day while further forward there was the finest attacker of the generation in Peter Canavan with other finishers like Owen Mulligan and Stephen O'Neill. The system suited them perfectly and brought them two All-Irelands.

You can't blame Tyrone, though, for so many managers trying to copy them. Instead of looking at the players at their disposal and looking to implement a system which suited them and which could counteract what Tyrone (or any other team for that matter) were at, they took the easy option. If you stand back and analyse it, you will see how a system can be beaten.

That's what Kerry did in 2006 when Kieran Donaghy was put on the edge of the square. One simple piece of clear thinking won the Kingdom an All-Ireland. Fast accurate ball into a big man wreaked havoc. It's fair to say it was an innovative move to revert to a type of game that had been thought as a relic of a dim and distant past.

Despite Kildare's shocking performance against Wicklow, I still believe that Kieran McGeeney will be a fine manager. Perhaps the biggest lesson he learned that day was that he had made a mistake in trying to introduce a system that he was comfortable playing in to a county where it was totally alien. Kieran just needed to be more cognisant of the Kildare way and adapt a system which best suited their way of playing.

The thing about trying to make radical changes to players is that, more often than not, they will revert to type under pressure and go back to their old ways. We saw a little of that again last Sunday with Monaghan.

The more they felt they needed to chase the game, the more frequent were the sort of mistakes and poor decisions of a few years ago.

My gameplan was always simple. I have always placed a lot of emphasis on having my players' heads right and not just their bodies. If a player's head is right, then it makes it so much easier to implement simple strategies on the field.

And my gameplan starts from the most basic of tenets: defenders defend, forwards attack. Managers are filling the heads of their forwards with far too much negativity. Practically every team in the country has one forward who can always be relied upon to score when the chance arises and it seems to me that what is happening is that coaches are happy to leave the scoring to this one guy and then give the rest of the forwards 'jobs' -- most of which have little to do with positive or creative play.

Funnily enough, I was in Waterville last week and I bumped into Maurice Fitzgerald. We chatted for a while and he made an interesting remark in the course of the conversation. He said that forwards should be judged at the end of a game by how much they have scored because that's their job.

I've often said in the past that we used to hate seeing Pat Spillane -- a man who was a deadly point-taker by the way -- dropping so deep. In fact, we took it as a personal insult that he felt we weren't doing our job properly.

In Carlow today, Meath will play Wexford and one thing you can be fairly sure of is that Meath will play the way they always do. I like the no-nonsense approach of Colm Coyle.

His team will not be burdened by tactics and systems: they will compete fiercely for possession between the two 50s and look to get fast ball to a dangerous inside forward line; and at the other end they will tackle and defend with physicality and honesty. And above all else, a Meath man is expected to win his own ball. What more can you ask?

Other managers this summer should take note of the likes of Coyle and Pat O'Shea -- and give their players all they need to go out and play to the best of their ability, not someone else's.

- Paidi O Se

[BallyhaiseMan]

Thats all very well and Good
15 against 15 Traditional style blah blah blah,

The fact is if you're up against a team with much better Footballers ,going 15 on 15 everyone keeping their positions is hardly going to be fruitful

Take for example my own County Cavan, if we were playing Kerry in the championship, it would be suicide to leave such quality players like Gooch and Donaghy 1  on 1 with defenders when you're also up against a Midfield supply coming from Darragh O Se. We would get beaten out the gate.

For Inferior teams to be able to compete with better ones, Tactics such as Crowded Defences and sweepers are necessary to crowd out the better players.

Unfortunately that upsets the "Football Purists" who are living in the past with their Catch and Kick dreams.

[haranguerer]

Football isn't a static game, if it was it would die out. It evolves like everything else. Theres no such thing as 'puke football' or any other type, its all just football. Tactics are becoming more and more a part of the game, its not a good or bad thing, its just the way it is.
With regards formation, unless you've managed to land a county job, its the same as it always was. Try to find 6 defenders, put the more mobile ones on the wing, the biggest iin fb, and the best footballer in chb. Then get two mobile strong, accurate, good fielders and put them in mf. You prob wont find one of these players, so alternatively put the tallest lad in, and then the closest you have to a fit all-round player. Then get 6 forwards, put the smallest/greediest in corner forward, the best all-round footballer of these 6 in chf, and mobile players on the wing. Agsin, tal lad in ff. And sin e!
The changing tactics really only come into play at higher levels, like soccer even; I play a bit and have never played anything but 442 - its never even discussed.

[gortnaleck]