Donegal v Tyrone Ulster Championship

[TY14ED]

Got to hand it to Jimmy he is a very focussed man & has certainly worked wonders with Donegal. As for Tyrone, we can play some great football but by God do we need to get smarter. Allowed Donegal to dictate the pace, let them bully us round free kicks & didn't buy frees when thy gave us so many chances with their forearm tackles. How many times did they con the ref with dives and we allowed them by leaving an arm in or letting them cut across us and then throw themselves to the ground.
My god do we need to get a nasty streak back- our teams of 03' 05 08 wouldnt have stood for the bullsiht that went on today. M Murphy constantly gubbing & influencing the ref... Why wasn't he thumped? Allowing Morgan to take that abuse when kicking frees... Fcuk sake lads start a ruckus or something. McQuillan the prune couldn't handle it so why did we stand back & take it. We need to get game smart or we'll continue to get bullied. It will be a long time before a ref & his officials are capable of controlling a team like Donegal so lets get this sorted in the qualifiers.

[Wildweasel74]

In all honesty after the keeper scored his point on the 2nd attempt and let the crowd know it, they were always going to be on his back. I dont think tyrone can complain about diving as for years your star midfielder was renowned for his swan lake diving impressions, its not nice when its on the other foot!!

[blewuporstuffed]

very disappointing, donegal  full value for the victory.
when the game was in the melting pot at 1-6 to 9 tyrone werent able to step up and take control of the game. missed a few very good chances, with morgan missing a few frees as well.
Alot of poor performances from tyrone today with really only gormely standing out as having played well.
A few strange decisions from the line aswell. I couldnt believe when they brought Cass on it was for justy and not Joe. Joe had been very poor and had just picked up a booking.
tyrone had completly lost their shape and all leadership at that stage.

Mcquillan was very poor today i thought and was completely intimidated by the crowd and the donegal management on the line.
He failed to deal with donegal gamesmanship throughout allowing mangers & the doctor to constantly run on the pitch and get involved in incidednts (that donegal doctor needs a good skite, his behaviour was a disgrace)
Also, with morgans frees allowed donegal players to stand far to close,he would move them back only for them to creep back up, dont know why he hadnt the balls to start booking them for this and dellaying free kicks etc. at one point he made a mark on the ground for the donegal man to stand behind and then allowed him to stand 3 yards in front of it!

saying all that, once donegal got the second goal, their was no way back for tyrone, they showed very little spirit and didnt deserve to get anything out of the game

impressed with mcbearty today, really took on the mantle for donegal. gonna be a serious player

[screenexile]

Disappointing result but the better team won. KL made some difference. I was shocked by the sheer lack of any class in victory from a large section of Donegal supporters at the end though. As Tyrone fans began leaving early there were scores of donegal fans, including grown men, in the stand waving car keys, singing "chiompioneees", hurling fairly scummy abuse at them and giving them the fingers. Absolutely trampish behaviour.

Hilarious! Glass houses and throwing stones comes to mind!

I would take you back to Tyrones behaviour in 2004 when playing Derry in the first round of the Championship. Pot, Kettle, Black!

Well I was doing no such thing in 2004, nor was every Donegal fan today, so I'm not in any glass house. I am merely commenting on the trampish behaviour from a fairly large section of the Donegal support in the stand at the end. Your gripe about behaviour of Tyrone fans nine years ago has absolutely no relevance to my point whatsoever. When people with children at their sides are walking past Donegal fans waving car keys, shouting abuse and giving them the fingers, then I stand by my original post. The behaviour of those particular fans today showed a real lack of class.

I'm not saying you personally were involved in anything but as a Tyrone supporter you have to accept that while your team were successful you had more than your fair share of trampish fans/bandwagon jumpers engaging in the same behaviour so your crying about Donegal fans seems a bit rich.

[blewuporstuffed]

Got to hand it to Jimmy he is a very focussed man & has certainly worked wonders with Donegal. As for Tyrone, we can play some great football but by God do we need to get smarter. Allowed Donegal to dictate the pace, let them bully us round free kicks & didn't buy frees when thy gave us so many chances with their forearm tackles. How many times did they con the ref with dives and we allowed them by leaving an arm in or letting them cut across us and then throw themselves to the ground.
My god do we need to get a nasty streak back- our teams of 03' 05 08 wouldnt have stood for the bullsiht that went on today. M Murphy constantly gubbing & influencing the ref... Why wasn't he thumped? Allowing Morgan to take that abuse when kicking frees... Fcuk sake lads start a ruckus or something. McQuillan the prune couldn't handle it so why did we stand back & take it. We need to get game smart or we'll continue to get bullied. It will be a long time before a ref & his officials are capable of controlling a team like Donegal so lets get this sorted in the qualifiers.

agree with this, once it was obvious mcquillan wasnt going to deal with this, tyrone should have fcked a couple of them out of the way and made an issue of it. force the ref into dealing with it. the players just stood back and took it.

[TY14ED]

In all honesty after the keeper scored his point on the 2nd attempt and let the crowd know it, they were always going to be on his back. I dont think tyrone can complain about diving as for years your star midfielder was renowned for his swan lake diving impressions, its not nice when its on the other foot!!

Not complaining at all- just stating that we need to get with it. This happens in games and it's costing us. Need to get smart to it. As for our swan he was fairly anonymous today. And as swans go what about the bold PB?

[Knock Yer Mucker In]

As a Clonoe man is any wonder we feel let down by Harte. Why on earth did he take McAliskey off, when he didn't take the nephew or Mc Mahon off when they got booked. In a game where scores were at a premium he took off one of our best scoring forwards. What must Colm Doris think when he see Colm Cavanagh playing game in game out.

BTW that's our last two championship games that we have taken a bad beating, Kerry and now Donegal.

[ONeill]

Very disappointing. I thought we'd lose by about that margin, but not in that manner. That game was there for the taking but we lacked any form of intelligence on the ball when faced with the Donegal no-scoring zone. It now seems that Morgan was the only plan Mickey had to deal with what had defeated him the previous two years. When that wasn't working, it was just a re-run of 2011 and 2012 with Harte, Donnelly and the Cavs running the ball straight into the gobbling machine.

Fair play to Donegal - whereas Tyrone were able to break through their tackling in the league, the McGuinness championship team was a different beast. The most perplexing thing was this - when McAliskey scored his point early on, it demonstrated one way of beating their system. Good, direct central ball into the FF line, swivel and score. It was promising - but then Mickey goes and hauls him off because of the yellow (I assume) whilst others say on with yellows later on. That left Stevie on his own as Harte was getting no change anywhere. Sean was in no-man's land. Sean was then a one-man FF in the second, surrounded by a crateful of Donegal men. Crazy stuff.

Tactically, Mickey had a horrible day and McGuinness skinned him, again. Oddly, for a Tyrone team, we won midfield but did nothing with it. Nothing had been learned or even attempted to address the manner of defeat in the last two years, apart from relying on a young keeper. Maddening.

[HokeyPokey]

I take exception to whoever said that Tyrone 03-08 were overachievers. They were certainly one of the best sides of all time.  There were certainly 2 to 3 average players that supplemented all the other great players. If you look at say the best 15 from that period...

1. McConnell
2. McMenamin
3. McAnallen
4. Gormley
5. Harte
6. McMahon
7. Jordan.
8. McGinley
9. Cavanagh
10. Dooher
11. McGuigan
12. Cavlan
13. O'Neill
14. Canavan
15. Mulligan

Every single one of those players would get on any team in any era. Then you have left out Justin McMahon, Devlin, McCullagh, Penrose, Devine, Lawn, Mellon, Hughes, Holmes etc.. Granted we always lacked the person to lep and catch the ball at midfield.. but there is no contesting the quality of that team. Spillane's bitterness in '03 masked just how well they played that year, especially in the first half against Kerry.

As regards this year, nothing is won in May. Donegal have won only the one All-Ireland in recent years. They certainly are a formidable team. They may get ahead of themselves and buy into the hype. Brolly seems to like to mythologise a team every now and then. He did it with Tyrone (2003-09), which maybe was justified, but in '08 he did call Donaghy unmarkable aswell... I hope Donegal do believe the hype. Tyrone have got a lot of attention of late, which is good and bad. The pressure will be off, but they have a point to prove, like Tyrone in 2008 where they were 33/1 at one stage! This is a different Tyrone team and how good they are certainly remains to be seen. Now they have a point to prove, as they left this match very much behind them.

[Walter Cronc]

In all honesty after the keeper scored his point on the 2nd attempt and let the crowd know it, they were always going to be on his back. I dont think tyrone can complain about diving as for years your star midfielder was renowned for his swan lake diving impressions, its not nice when its on the other foot!!

Not complaining at all- just stating that we need to get with it. This happens in games and it's costing us. Need to get smart to it. As for our swan he was fairly anonymous today. And as swans go what about the bold PB?

He has many faults but diving ain't one of the them!

[BluestackBoy]

You can get bbc NI on sat freeview under other channels if you've scanned it or search the web for bbc 2 NI. I for one will be worried about McBrearty today. Hopefully no repeat of those antics 40 years ago

McBrearty could be the dark horse in this game. If he clicks it will go a long way towards a Donegal win.

Man of the match & a huge bonus for Donegal if he keeps this up

[Whishtup]

Ach, yill always get that to some degree with most counties-seem to remember a small group of young Tyrone fans jumping around a group of Armagh fans in 2005 singing, "You can shove your Ulster title up your ****", after the Semi.  I remember being mildly amused by this at the time but to a kid from Armagh, this might have been frightening.  Should be discouraged alright but where you have crowds of youngsters boozing and pumped up, these things can happen.  The important thing is that nothing gets violent.  That would be a sad day for the GAA.
        As for the game well done Donegal-must be great relief after the league.  Tyrone seemed to have regressed from the side that played towards the end of the league.  Didn't see the worth of Peter Harte in this game.  Think that his involvement  limited the central runs of Mattie and Mark Donnelly that were becoming an exciting facet of Tyrone's gameplay.  That's not to say that they would have broken through the tough nucleus of this Donegal team, even though they did run through Dublin at times, but why change a team that are flying?   
       Early indiscipline from Tyrone was disappointing as it gifted Donegal easy scores-need to work on this.  Think that Niall Morgan should not have engaged the Donegal crowd.  Why add pressure to an already tricky role so early in a game.  When I saw him laughing at the slagging early on, I thought that perhaps he wasn't as focused as he should have been.  Great talent and he will learn from this.
       Some performance from Gormley-takes the game by the scruff of the neck when it is needed and would be the biggest loss to this team were he to get injured.  Think the two McMahon's should have came off earlier.  A game like this doesn't suit Joe's languid style.
       I wouldn't rate Donegal too highly after this performance as Tyrone were poor by their own standards and failed to bring the new enthusiasm gained in the league into the game.  Had Morgan been on target, I'm sure that Tyrone would have won this as the failure to go in front at crucial times seemed to deflate Tyrone in the second half.   
      You would hope now that the squad, and especially the younger members will rebound through the back door with the same fervour of the 2005 team.  A lot to work on.         
 
                 

[babarino]

This is a different Tyrone team and how good they are certainly remains to be seen. Now they have a point to prove, as they left this match very much behind them.

This was effectively an Ulster Final in which Tyrone were out-thought and out-fought. Donegal's footballing ability has always been there, but the tactical composure they showed today was really impressive.

Tyrone looked very good at significant stages. To lose by two goals will be tough to come back from. It's just a case of going through the motions for Tyrone from here on in.

[TY14ED]

In all honesty after the keeper scored his point on the 2nd attempt and let the crowd know it, they were always going to be on his back. I dont think tyrone can complain about diving as for years your star midfielder was renowned for his swan lake diving impressions, its not nice when its on the other foot!!

Not complaining at all- just stating that we need to get with it. This happens in games and it's costing us. Need to get smart to it. As for our swan he was fairly anonymous today. And as swans go what about the bold PB?

He has many faults but diving ain't one of the them!

Watch him closely

[Kidder81]

Is it time for Micky Harte to step aside after this season and give someone else a go at it ?