Tyrone County Football and Hurling

[GetOverTheBar]

Niall Morgan has naked photos of Mickey Harte.

Go away from home for a really tricky tie, play great football winning by 10 and scoring 2-22. The fact this was your only comment on the game sums up the mentality of many on this thread.

Number of excellent performances as mentioned by others. I think you can usually tell quickly if Morgan is on form for frees and there's no way he should have got hitting 3. But there was a lot more to the performance than that.

In tight games those 3 potential pints are vital. This is one of the key differences between tyrone and the top teams, we have no reliable free taker. Morgan has proved the past 4 years he is not a reliable free taker. Not sure why Mickey keeps sending him up as it's not really fair on him.

Morgan may not be a reliable free taker but he's not a bad long distance free taker, he's the best we have in the squad now.

I had made some additional comments on the thread on the main board.
Niall Morgan has about a 10 -20% hit rate with these free kicks at the very best. If there is no one able to take them, then take them short and try and work a better opportunity.
You'd think that Morgan himself would have the gumption to know not to go up and take them. The man's not wise.

Cassidy is a great player. Can't for the life of me understand why Harte dropped for the Donegal game.

Pretty sure Morgan's hit rate is much higher across the league and Championship this year, I'd say it's probably 50% anyway and very few players are above 60% from that range. Even Michael Murphy who is one of the best around, missed a couple of mid to long range ones against us in the semi final. Morgan in contrast hit 2/2 from his long range frees against Donegal.

What skews Morgan's stats is he only hits the ones around the 40 yard and further range. Cillian O'Connor only has a ratio of around 30% from this range, all the top free takers will struggle from here. Beggan missed 3 or 4 against Cavan in the Ulster Championship this year.

As unreliable as Morgan may be, there are probably only a handful more who have better success rate from that range.

Exactly. As soon as Morgan misses a few the knives are out. The criticism he gets is unreal. His kick outs were brilliant yesterday. Still remains one of the best in the country.

Hit rate, stats, blah, blah, blah. If you can't score them, don't take them.

What sort of statement is that?
Unless you are 100% of scoring, don't take on a shot then.

We'll stick with the 1-1 scoreline then.

Id settle for 50%, At the minute it's about 10%
This is a fair criticism of him. Some amount of people giving him a rim job on here. He's absolutely shite at free kicks. He shouldn't take them, but he must have a hard on for himself that is unreal if even he can't see how f**king shite he is.
I hope I am proved wrong.

You realise that the manager instructs whomever to take the kicks.....The lads don't just sort it out themselves on the day who fancies it. The keeper shouldn't be taking the free kicks IMO but to personally slate someone for doing what is asked of them is a bit harsh. Why do we not have a forward that can take a long kick? Why does whoever not try and work a quick one.

Your making a tactical decision personal. Presumably your angling for a game for Gallen - you'll be thrilled when he comes 50 metres out of the goal and loses it then.

[trueblue1234]

Niall Morgan has naked photos of Mickey Harte.

Go away from home for a really tricky tie, play great football winning by 10 and scoring 2-22. The fact this was your only comment on the game sums up the mentality of many on this thread.

Number of excellent performances as mentioned by others. I think you can usually tell quickly if Morgan is on form for frees and there's no way he should have got hitting 3. But there was a lot more to the performance than that.

In tight games those 3 potential pints are vital. This is one of the key differences between tyrone and the top teams, we have no reliable free taker. Morgan has proved the past 4 years he is not a reliable free taker. Not sure why Mickey keeps sending him up as it's not really fair on him.

Morgan may not be a reliable free taker but he's not a bad long distance free taker, he's the best we have in the squad now.

I had made some additional comments on the thread on the main board.
Niall Morgan has about a 10 -20% hit rate with these free kicks at the very best. If there is no one able to take them, then take them short and try and work a better opportunity.
You'd think that Morgan himself would have the gumption to know not to go up and take them. The man's not wise.

Cassidy is a great player. Can't for the life of me understand why Harte dropped for the Donegal game.

Pretty sure Morgan's hit rate is much higher across the league and Championship this year, I'd say it's probably 50% anyway and very few players are above 60% from that range. Even Michael Murphy who is one of the best around, missed a couple of mid to long range ones against us in the semi final. Morgan in contrast hit 2/2 from his long range frees against Donegal.

What skews Morgan's stats is he only hits the ones around the 40 yard and further range. Cillian O'Connor only has a ratio of around 30% from this range, all the top free takers will struggle from here. Beggan missed 3 or 4 against Cavan in the Ulster Championship this year.

As unreliable as Morgan may be, there are probably only a handful more who have better success rate from that range.

Exactly. As soon as Morgan misses a few the knives are out. The criticism he gets is unreal. His kick outs were brilliant yesterday. Still remains one of the best in the country.

Hit rate, stats, blah, blah, blah. If you can't score them, don't take them.

What sort of statement is that?
Unless you are 100% of scoring, don't take on a shot then.

We'll stick with the 1-1 scoreline then.

Id settle for 50%, At the minute it's about 10%
This is a fair criticism of him. Some amount of people giving him a rim job on here. He's absolutely shite at free kicks. He shouldn't take them, but he must have a hard on for himself that is unreal if even he can't see how f**king shite he is.
I hope I am proved wrong.

You deal only in extremes. He's either deadly or shite. Just because we don't agree with your view that he's shite, doesn't mean we giving him a rim job!! He's the best we have at long distance frees. So until someone comes along who's better I'm happy to stick with him. The 10% ratio is bollix imo.

That said I do agree we should go short more often. Even to allow Morgan to take a return and shoot from closer in. He's shown he's got no problems shooting from play as well.

[Fuzzman]

I definitely thought he was improved this year and was nailing more of the far out ones that he normally does.
We have been discussing this for years at this stage and there was a while he seemed to not be hitting as many as he used to. For me, his misses were actually having an effect on the fans and then on the team that they didn't actually expect him to score them and it almost gave the other team a lift when he missed.

I agree, most of the better free takers score most of the closer in ones but even great free takers like Murphy, Rock and CoC have to force their kick a bit for those ones beyond the 45m mark and so they miss a good few as well.
Personally I'd much rather we take a quick short free as we have some very good long range kickers or dare I be so bold to suggest he takes it quick takes a few steps forward and gets it back as he has a great long distance shot himself out of his hands (Whilst someone minds the nets for him of course  )

Of course it's the best possible draw we could have got in my opinion. Look at poor Donegal  who will probably have Clare or Meath at home first, then Kerry in Croker and either Mayo or Galway away in their last game.
I'd say they would much rather have avoided Mayo or Galway but at least to have got them at home and not away

[trailer]

He's shite a free kicks and he shouldn't take them. It kills momentum when he comes up and misses. It gives the opposition a huge lift. If Harte is asking him to take them, the he needs to get himself looked about because that's mental.

I don't care much for Gallen. Morgan is a very good keeper. But he's pure dung at free kicks.

[square_ball]

Now come on trailer you're exaggerating there just to be be dramatic.

[trueblue1234]

I definitely thought he was improved this year and was nailing more of the far out ones that he normally does.
We have been discussing this for years at this stage and there was a while he seemed to not be hitting as many as he used to. For me, his misses were actually having an effect on the fans and then on the team that they didn't actually expect him to score them and it almost gave the other team a lift when he missed.

I agree, most of the better free takers score most of the closer in ones but even great free takers like Murphy, Rock and CoC have to force their kick a bit for those ones beyond the 45m mark and so they miss a good few as well.
Personally I'd much rather we take a quick short free as we have some very good long range kickers or dare I be so bold to suggest he takes it quick takes a few steps forward and gets it back as he has a great long distance shot himself out of his hands (Whilst someone minds the nets for him of course  )

Of course it's the best possible draw we could have got in my opinion. Look at poor Donegal  who will probably have Clare or Meath at home first, then Kerry in Croker and either Mayo or Galway away in their last game.
I'd say they would much rather have avoided Mayo or Galway but at least to have got them at home and not away

That's a great idea.   

[Angelo]

Niall Morgan has naked photos of Mickey Harte.

Go away from home for a really tricky tie, play great football winning by 10 and scoring 2-22. The fact this was your only comment on the game sums up the mentality of many on this thread.

Number of excellent performances as mentioned by others. I think you can usually tell quickly if Morgan is on form for frees and there's no way he should have got hitting 3. But there was a lot more to the performance than that.

In tight games those 3 potential pints are vital. This is one of the key differences between tyrone and the top teams, we have no reliable free taker. Morgan has proved the past 4 years he is not a reliable free taker. Not sure why Mickey keeps sending him up as it's not really fair on him.

Morgan may not be a reliable free taker but he's not a bad long distance free taker, he's the best we have in the squad now.

I had made some additional comments on the thread on the main board.
Niall Morgan has about a 10 -20% hit rate with these free kicks at the very best. If there is no one able to take them, then take them short and try and work a better opportunity.
You'd think that Morgan himself would have the gumption to know not to go up and take them. The man's not wise.

Cassidy is a great player. Can't for the life of me understand why Harte dropped for the Donegal game.

Pretty sure Morgan's hit rate is much higher across the league and Championship this year, I'd say it's probably 50% anyway and very few players are above 60% from that range. Even Michael Murphy who is one of the best around, missed a couple of mid to long range ones against us in the semi final. Morgan in contrast hit 2/2 from his long range frees against Donegal.

What skews Morgan's stats is he only hits the ones around the 40 yard and further range. Cillian O'Connor only has a ratio of around 30% from this range, all the top free takers will struggle from here. Beggan missed 3 or 4 against Cavan in the Ulster Championship this year.

As unreliable as Morgan may be, there are probably only a handful more who have better success rate from that range.

Exactly. As soon as Morgan misses a few the knives are out. The criticism he gets is unreal. His kick outs were brilliant yesterday. Still remains one of the best in the country.

Hit rate, stats, blah, blah, blah. If you can't score them, don't take them.

What sort of statement is that?
Unless you are 100% of scoring, don't take on a shot then.

We'll stick with the 1-1 scoreline then.

Id settle for 50%, At the minute it's about 10%
This is a fair criticism of him. Some amount of people giving him a rim job on here. He's absolutely shite at free kicks. He shouldn't take them, but he must have a hard on for himself that is unreal if even he can't see how f**king shite he is.
I hope I am proved wrong.

It's not. Was it 1 in 4 last Saturday? That was on a bad day and that's 25%. He was 100% against Donegal, 2 from 2 I think.

[square_ball]

Catch a grip Angelo. We don't deal with facts around these parts. Just wild guesses based on getting a dig in at someone. If the man says its a 10% success rate it's 10%.

[bigpackiechestout]

Niall Morgan has naked photos of Mickey Harte.

Go away from home for a really tricky tie, play great football winning by 10 and scoring 2-22. The fact this was your only comment on the game sums up the mentality of many on this thread.

Number of excellent performances as mentioned by others. I think you can usually tell quickly if Morgan is on form for frees and there's no way he should have got hitting 3. But there was a lot more to the performance than that.

In tight games those 3 potential pints are vital. This is one of the key differences between tyrone and the top teams, we have no reliable free taker. Morgan has proved the past 4 years he is not a reliable free taker. Not sure why Mickey keeps sending him up as it's not really fair on him.

Morgan may not be a reliable free taker but he's not a bad long distance free taker, he's the best we have in the squad now.

I had made some additional comments on the thread on the main board.
Niall Morgan has about a 10 -20% hit rate with these free kicks at the very best. If there is no one able to take them, then take them short and try and work a better opportunity.
You'd think that Morgan himself would have the gumption to know not to go up and take them. The man's not wise.

Cassidy is a great player. Can't for the life of me understand why Harte dropped for the Donegal game.

Pretty sure Morgan's hit rate is much higher across the league and Championship this year, I'd say it's probably 50% anyway and very few players are above 60% from that range. Even Michael Murphy who is one of the best around, missed a couple of mid to long range ones against us in the semi final. Morgan in contrast hit 2/2 from his long range frees against Donegal.

What skews Morgan's stats is he only hits the ones around the 40 yard and further range. Cillian O'Connor only has a ratio of around 30% from this range, all the top free takers will struggle from here. Beggan missed 3 or 4 against Cavan in the Ulster Championship this year.

As unreliable as Morgan may be, there are probably only a handful more who have better success rate from that range.

Exactly. As soon as Morgan misses a few the knives are out. The criticism he gets is unreal. His kick outs were brilliant yesterday. Still remains one of the best in the country.

Hit rate, stats, blah, blah, blah. If you can't score them, don't take them.

What sort of statement is that?
Unless you are 100% of scoring, don't take on a shot then.

We'll stick with the 1-1 scoreline then.

Id settle for 50%, At the minute it's about 10%
This is a fair criticism of him. Some amount of people giving him a rim job on here. He's absolutely shite at free kicks. He shouldn't take them, but he must have a hard on for himself that is unreal if even he can't see how f**king shite he is.
I hope I am proved wrong.

It's not. Was it 1 in 4 last Saturday? That was on a bad day and that's 25%. He was 100% against Donegal, 2 from 2 I think.

It was 0 from 3 last weekend. Combine that with the Donegal game and he's on 2/5 which I'd guess isn't far off his overall average. Also, the fact that he kicked 2 from 2 against Donegal almost epitomizes the problem - Morgan seems to have no problem stroking them over when we are cruising and well ahead or if we are well behind, chasing the game and the pressure is off to a degree. The only kick I can remember him landing at a crucial stage where a game was in the balance was v Donegal in the Super 8s last year.

No matter what anyone says this has been a problem for Tyrone since as far back as the '15 semi final v Kerry and Morgan hasn't got any better since then. As someone said it's got to the point where when he comes up the field and puts it wide it seems to drain the energy from the crowd. If Morgan has been kicking them for this long then he's obviously the best in the panel at them, but I would definitely be in favour of working more short routines especially for any free kicks just beyond the 45 or out on the wings.

[Redhand Santa]

I'd say there is no doubt that Morgan is the best striker of a ball of the ground in the squad. But I would agree he's very inconsistent.

Tyrone were still in the game v Donegal in the ulster semi when he scored his frees so I don't think they could be dismissed as not being important. Against Kildare we where actually rightly ahead when he missed the frees. I didn't mind him getting a go at the first two which were far out but when he missed them there was no way he should have got taking the third which was closer in.

Given his ability I've no doubt it's a mental issue that is causing him to miss a lot of the frees, you wonder if enough has been done to get his routine and head space right when taking them.

[Angelo]

Niall Morgan has naked photos of Mickey Harte.

Go away from home for a really tricky tie, play great football winning by 10 and scoring 2-22. The fact this was your only comment on the game sums up the mentality of many on this thread.

Number of excellent performances as mentioned by others. I think you can usually tell quickly if Morgan is on form for frees and there's no way he should have got hitting 3. But there was a lot more to the performance than that.

In tight games those 3 potential pints are vital. This is one of the key differences between tyrone and the top teams, we have no reliable free taker. Morgan has proved the past 4 years he is not a reliable free taker. Not sure why Mickey keeps sending him up as it's not really fair on him.

Morgan may not be a reliable free taker but he's not a bad long distance free taker, he's the best we have in the squad now.

I had made some additional comments on the thread on the main board.
Niall Morgan has about a 10 -20% hit rate with these free kicks at the very best. If there is no one able to take them, then take them short and try and work a better opportunity.
You'd think that Morgan himself would have the gumption to know not to go up and take them. The man's not wise.

Cassidy is a great player. Can't for the life of me understand why Harte dropped for the Donegal game.

Pretty sure Morgan's hit rate is much higher across the league and Championship this year, I'd say it's probably 50% anyway and very few players are above 60% from that range. Even Michael Murphy who is one of the best around, missed a couple of mid to long range ones against us in the semi final. Morgan in contrast hit 2/2 from his long range frees against Donegal.

What skews Morgan's stats is he only hits the ones around the 40 yard and further range. Cillian O'Connor only has a ratio of around 30% from this range, all the top free takers will struggle from here. Beggan missed 3 or 4 against Cavan in the Ulster Championship this year.

As unreliable as Morgan may be, there are probably only a handful more who have better success rate from that range.

Exactly. As soon as Morgan misses a few the knives are out. The criticism he gets is unreal. His kick outs were brilliant yesterday. Still remains one of the best in the country.

Hit rate, stats, blah, blah, blah. If you can't score them, don't take them.

What sort of statement is that?
Unless you are 100% of scoring, don't take on a shot then.

We'll stick with the 1-1 scoreline then.

Id settle for 50%, At the minute it's about 10%
This is a fair criticism of him. Some amount of people giving him a rim job on here. He's absolutely shite at free kicks. He shouldn't take them, but he must have a hard on for himself that is unreal if even he can't see how f**king shite he is.
I hope I am proved wrong.

It's not. Was it 1 in 4 last Saturday? That was on a bad day and that's 25%. He was 100% against Donegal, 2 from 2 I think.

It was 0 from 3 last weekend. Combine that with the Donegal game and he's on 2/5 which I'd guess isn't far off his overall average. Also, the fact that he kicked 2 from 2 against Donegal almost epitomizes the problem - Morgan seems to have no problem stroking them over when we are cruising and well ahead or if we are well behind, chasing the game and the pressure is off to a degree. The only kick I can remember him landing at a crucial stage where a game was in the balance was v Donegal in the Super 8s last year.

No matter what anyone says this has been a problem for Tyrone since as far back as the '15 semi final v Kerry and Morgan hasn't got any better since then. As someone said it's got to the point where when he comes up the field and puts it wide it seems to drain the energy from the crowd. If Morgan has been kicking them for this long then he's obviously the best in the panel at them, but I would definitely be in favour of working more short routines especially for any free kicks just beyond the 45 or out on the wings.

I don't think 40% is a bad return from that range though. I'd say it's not too far off the perceived experts from that range.

I think people have an unrealistic expectation and it's formed from the fact that the likes of Rock, Sean O'Shea, Murphy and Cillian O'Connor will score 8 or 9 frees a game but will be maybe 50% on the long range ones.

[bigpackiechestout]

Angelo, we obviously don't have the stats to hand but even if you are correct that Morgan has similar stats from this range to Rock, O'Shea etc, this doesn't account for the negative impact a Morgan miss has on the Tyrone crowd, which will then filter through to the team. This simply doesn't happen when, for example, Michael Murphy misses a free kick because he has enough credit in the bank from scoring 80% of his other free kicks.

[Fuzzman]

I think that's a very good point bigpackie.
Outfield players like Murphy and forwards do a lot more for the team in one way and so keepers taking them in the first place is still viewed as "He Must be good and will score if the keepers hitting them".
But when the keeper keeps missing more than he scores you would imagine Mickey who is so ruthless with many other players, doesn't say enough is enough.
It could mean the difference between getting to a semifinal or final sometimes.

On another note, I miss the naming of the team on Thur nights. Used to look forward to that and discussing it on the Friday.
I wonder will Richie and Hampsey return. I'd be happy to leave Hampsey to rest for another few weeks.

[GetOverTheBar]

Angelo, we obviously don't have the stats to hand but even if you are correct that Morgan has similar stats from this range to Rock, O'Shea etc, this doesn't account for the negative impact a Morgan miss has on the Tyrone crowd, which will then filter through to the team. This simply doesn't happen when, for example, Michael Murphy misses a free kick because he has enough credit in the bank from scoring 80% of his other free kicks.

Says more about the crowd in question to be honest. Our outfield players continue to hide behind a lad who can kick it long, you watch tomorrow night - any excuse they can, they'll look back and try and wash their hands of it. Tyrone will not win an All Ireland until they have a forward who can nail them. Bringing the keeper up slows the game down, which is exactly what Harte wants - it's a tactical ploy with a percentage shot of getting a point. The crowd may be frustrated, but it's not at the Goalkeeper - it's at the management....who as they say, insanity is doing the same thing over expecting different results.

[Redhand Santa]

Do southtyronegael and his mates only comment on here during or after defeats? All very quiet this last few weeks.

We're now at important junction in the year where we enter the business end. I think the players deserve praise for putting in a huge amount of work this year again. They started the championship slowly but have put in very good performances in recent weeks.

Harte also deserves praise for leading us to the last 8 of the all Ireland in 14 out of his 17 seasons in charge, an incredible statistic. We have also got to 8 semi finals since he took over and hopefully we'll get back there and further again this year.

Next week looks like a huge game in deciding that. Hopefully a large support travel and give the team the support they deserve, Roscommon will be up for it big time.