Messages

Need to forget about the rebuild talk and wake up and see the situation in front of us. The reality is the rugby players Ireland are now producing are miles behind France and England. Outside of Porter and Furlong our props are all 3rd rate players, nowhere near the quality or size to compete at international level. They're AIL quality props.

There's nothing coming through in the back line where we are without doubt lining out the worst back 3 in the competition. O'Brien is nothing special. Stockdale has been a has been for 6 years now and Osbourne has talent but won't get far with what's around him. McCloskey is a 2nd rate smash merchant, England would have about 10 guys who could do it better than him. Take a look at Ulster and Munsters squads at the minute, they are easily the worst squads they've assembled since the professional era started, there's hardly any quality players from which any Ireland manager could make a winning team.

Sheehan, Doris, Beirne, possibly Conan and Gibson Park are now our only world class players. That's simply not enough to carry a terrible squad to success. Casey is nowhere near international level, in fact he's wouldn't get a game at any Premiership rugby team. That he's our 2nd best scrum half says it all.

["When scoring is too easy, the best way to defend is to deny the opposition the ball."]

EoinW it looks like you're already setting up camp for the summer in the same place as you did last year, among the woods but unable to see the trees.

"When scoring is too easy, the best way to defend is to deny the opposition the ball."

You just don't seem to get it at all.

The changes to the kickout rules and the removal of the keeper from open play means there is no guaranteed way to re-secure possession after any score or wide.

So when in the closing minutes of a game, there will continue to be an obvious incentive to protect a slender lead through possession (with 11 men instead of 15 making it a tougher ask btw). But there is now limited incentive to do so earlier in the game. If you're still inclined, you can f**k around with the ball for minutes at a time if you like. The difference being that your opponents, with an aggressive game plan, need to make just one turnover and can then viably post a big lead in just 3-4 minutes of play, thereby rendering your pishy "tactics" obsolete.

I don't think this is true at all. I witnessed Pomeroy last year in the Tyrone Championship look to hold possession for extended periods around their own halfway line. Their defenders could freely cycle possession between each other with ease because the forwards were shit scared of crossing the halfway and conceding a 2 point free. For Pomeroy is was a lot easier, once one of their players retreated behind the halfway then another could run up the pitch in possession whilst their marking forward had to watch as they galloped away.

The idea that since the new rules is so easy to push up and turn possession over is just pure bollocks. We still regularly see the extended periods of "keep-ball" that we seen under the old rules, especially at the end of each half. The recent games are littered with examples of players putting a hand or arm up to signal "look now, it's keep-ball time"

I don't think it's particularly close either. Would anyone bet their house on a UI in the next 30 years?

Word on the street is that the Fermanagh man and the second most expensive management team ever assembled are running out of road. Maybe we dodged a bullet?

first win in 582 days..  Derry running out of Tyrone managers 😂🤣

Yes, but he's guaranteed himself a decent run at things.

Will Malachy still be there come championship?

Considering he got them to the All Ireland semi-final last year.. what do you think? 😊
You don't have to get a new manager every year!

I wonder how much longer MOR can dine out on QF win over the worst Dublin team of the last 20 years.

Whether you like it or not Brennan kept Burns out of the team last year and I don't see how you could overlook him this week given how wide open our defence was last week. There is a strong argument for Brennan at 3 and Burns at 6.

Out the field I'd rest Kennedy, if he's just coming back to fitness I see no need to flog him in what will be a dogfight of a match. He's a good sub option and Conn, Oguz and Daly are more than good enough to cover MF. Conn needs to be given freer reign by the management. Twice the last day he made a bursting run through the centre of defence and was entitled to have a shot from 30 yards, he threw the ball out wide both times to a player in a worse position and the initiative was lost.

Contrary to opinion I'd start J Clarke but not the other 2. He's a fit young lad, Sigerson is not that high intensity as IC football and I don't see why he can't do 40-50mins of the Derry game. He was too good the last day to overlook. No defender matched anywhere near his performance level (as regards defending).

As for up front, I'd start Jordan and Canavan so long as he's fit. The idea that McGarrity is some all-star, fix all player to whom we can just launch shitty passes and he'll clean up is laughable. Start 4 half-forwards and only play 2 inside, freeing up space for those to play. Playing our forwards in a slow crowded attack is our biggest weakness, we need to focus much more on fast counters and creating space inside for our forwards. Other teams can do it and so should we.

I've never once heard anyone say that about McGarrity. There's a reason his name is put about. He's 6ft2 and a completely different profile of inside forward than we have. If you want to continue persisting with two little guys in there who struggle to win their own ball then by all means sneer at the option of playing McGarrity inside.

We gave badly lacked a physical presence in the forward line for years. Donnelly isn't cutting it there.

There's alot more wrong with our attack than just someone under 6ft playing at 14.

Whether you like it or not Brennan kept Burns out of the team last year and I don't see how you could overlook him this week given how wide open our defence was last week. There is a strong argument for Brennan at 3 and Burns at 6.

Out the field I'd rest Kennedy, if he's just coming back to fitness I see no need to flog him in what will be a dogfight of a match. He's a good sub option and Conn, Oguz and Daly are more than good enough to cover MF. Conn needs to be given freer reign by the management. Twice the last day he made a bursting run through the centre of defence and was entitled to have a shot from 30 yards, he threw the ball out wide both times to a player in a worse position and the initiative was lost.

Contrary to opinion I'd start J Clarke but not the other 2. He's a fit young lad, Sigerson is not that high intensity as IC football and I don't see why he can't do 40-50mins of the Derry game. He was too good the last day to overlook. No defender matched anywhere near his performance level (as regards defending).

As for up front, I'd start Jordan and Canavan so long as he's fit. The idea that McGarrity is some all-star, fix all player to whom we can just launch shitty passes and he'll clean up is laughable. Start 4 half-forwards and only play 2 inside, freeing up space for those to play. Playing our forwards in a slow crowded attack is our biggest weakness, we need to focus much more on fast counters and creating space inside for our forwards. Other teams can do it and so should we.

For all our success at underage we do produce the same type of player. We'd need the odd big 6.5ft lump coming through.

I don't really agree, you play to your strengths and from what I see very few teams rely on size to win matches under the new rules. Galway are a classic example of a very big physical team who could not get to grips with the new rules last year and never really preformed.

I mean if we are blessed with a lot of small skilful players why do we not play to those strengths by playing a faster, less structured game? I actually believe pace and stamina are more important than ever in football as guys like Roarty, Ciaran Moore, o begley, P Clifford and Mick McKernan have shown.

[With all due respect to the man]

Very lucky to get a point this evening. Had we lost it we possibly would've needed to beat Derry or Meath to get promotion. Very very early in the year to be playing "winner takes all" matches.

Malachy once again appearing as the emperor without clothes. The "new manager", "team in transition" excuses being rolled out for him again. Lest we forget Donegal were Div 2 and a team in transition when McGuinness came in and with a lot less underage success than us. Since then they're twice Ulster winners and AI finalists.

Still no plan on kickouts, a scatter gun approach to selections and a pretty consistent lack of intensity in our play. With all due respect to the man but the only team operating with the same amount of underage success as ourselves are Kerry. Now underage is not the be all, end all but still it's certainly a big help for any manager.

I suppose I'll have to reserve judgement until the end of the league but to be honest another year in Div 2 would be pretty disastrous for us. The most worrying thing is that our bad performances clearly outnumber our good ones. Bad performances are a lot easier to take when you see clear signs of progress or development. There's nothing of that in MORs Tyrone. Just scattered bits of brilliance, (like Joey Clarkes blocks tonight or Eoin McElholm and Darren McCurry cameos last year,) digging us out of massive holes.

"With all due respect to the man.." 🤣 classic! You have absolutely no respect for him. You spent all last year slagging him off until he took them to the All Ireland semi-final then wound your neck in. As been said, is hard to make head or tail of what you're on about.

I wondered when my stalker was going to reappear. Any chance your slobbering synchophany for Malachy O'Rourke could be used to counter any of the points I made in that post?

Any idea why we don't have a kick-out press or kickout strategy? Any idea why our game plan is always "pick 15 players and hope they somehow gel"?

Very lucky to get a point this evening. Had we lost it we possibly would've needed to beat Derry or Meath to get promotion. Very very early in the year to be playing "winner takes all" matches.

Malachy once again appearing as the emperor without clothes. The "new manager", "team in transition" excuses being rolled out for him again. Lest we forget Donegal were Div 2 and a team in transition when McGuinness came in and with a lot less underage success than us. Since then they're twice Ulster winners and AI finalists.

Still no plan on kickouts, a scatter gun approach to selections and a pretty consistent lack of intensity in our play. With all due respect to the man but the only team operating with the same amount of underage success as ourselves are Kerry. Now underage is not the be all, end all but still it's certainly a big help for any manager.

I suppose I'll have to reserve judgement until the end of the league but to be honest another year in Div 2 would be pretty disastrous for us. The most worrying thing is that our bad performances clearly outnumber our good ones. Bad performances are a lot easier to take when you see clear signs of progress or development. There's nothing of that in MORs Tyrone. Just scattered bits of brilliance, (like Joey Clarkes blocks tonight or Eoin McElholm and Darren McCurry cameos last year,) digging us out of massive holes.

Thibauld Flament. Fucks sake man, just tell us you're injured.

That's almost certainly Bradley's cruciate gone. Fucks sake

Let's be honest Amorin was a dick. Always someone else to blame but him. I never got the media love-in that he cultivated, a foreign manager with poorer English would have been out the door 12 months ago.

Always blaming players is a fairly shitty way of going about your job too, they are contracted same as you so if you can't off-load them you make use of them in any manner.

Klopp had plenty of driftwood too but made use of guys like Sturridge until he could off-load them, he wasn't constantly falling out with players for the fun of it.

Some craic   

Anyway onto Arsenal now 

The quality of this game is shocking. It's piss poor.

British government  has watered down the inheritance  tax on farms

Starmer and Labour  clearly getting desperate now

The end is nigh  for them

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c8e9n3y28g1o

Bit of a help.

Inheritance tax is a joke altogether.

It's quite job to make as big a balls of governance as the Tories from 2017 but this Labour government are nearly achieving that.

The political capital they've expended on both this and home heating grants, only to subsequently row back to the position they always should have had from the start is outrageous. To be fair it's civil servants and advisors who devise the tax proposals but Whitehall must be bunged with absolute idiots.