Tyrone GT news

Thomas Clarke wrote:

bocerty wrote:
one paper recently described him as possibly the next Dooher (and that's some statement to make)

Unreal! On the other wing, though, throw in a bit of vision and better shooting, and Mattie Donnelly could become a very good player.

i think the vision is there TC i just think he is an incredibly selfish player with an ego. Its all about him and not the team unfortunately.

Though Mickey must see something in him

bocerty wrote:
i think the vision is there TC i just think he is an incredibly selfish player with an ego. Its all about him and not the team unfortunately.

Though Mickey must see something in him

Do you think so, Boc? To be honest, I don't see that at all. He holds onto the ball a lot, but no-one did more of that when he first arrived than Brian Dooher. It's a common enough trait in many lads playing for lesser clubs when they first start playing intercounty. Maybe you are right, but it isn't something I've seen.

Tyrone team for the trip to Mayo on Sunday:

1 Niall Morgan
2 Aidan McCrory
3 Justin McMahon
4 Conor Gormley
5 Ryan McKenna
6 Joe McMahon
7 Ronan McNamee
8 Conor Clarke
9 Sean Cavanagh
10 Patrick McNiece
11 Peter Harte
12 Matthew Donnelly
13 Conor McAlliskey
14 Stephen O'Neill
15 Mark Donnelly

16 Pascal McConnell
17 Kevin Gallagher
18 Johnny Lafferty
19 Plunkett Kane
20 Danny McBride
21 Tiarnan McCann
22 Cathal McCarron
23 Darren McCurry
24 Ronan O'Neill
25 Martin Penrose
26 Barry Tierney

Only 2 changes from the last day, with Cathal McCarron losing in a reshuffle out to Conor Clarke, and Paddy McNeice replacing Kevin Gallagher. Ronan McNamee came off injured last week, so it remains to be seen if he actually starts.

Colm Cavanagh, Mickey Murphy, Aidan Cassidy, PJ Quinn, Dermot Carlin, Ronan McNabb and Kyle Coney are the most notable absentees from the squad.

Carlin has a bad knee injury TC, he is in a knee brace 24/7 for 8 weeks or so be lucky to make the last 2 league games i think.

Murphy was in Australia and only home so match fitness would be an issue there - or just fitness in general.

bocerty wrote:Carlin has a bad knee injury TC, he is in a knee brace 24/7 for 8 weeks or so be lucky to make the last 2 league games i think.

Murphy was in Australia and only home so match fitness would be an issue there - or just fitness in general.

I feel bad for Carlin. He has had rotten luck over the years and, if fit, would be on my 15 at present. Happy to see Murphy back, so long as he can reach fitness fairly quickly. He's not a world beater, but is a robust sort that could do a job.

Of the other absentees, Mickey is clearly a big fan of McNabb, but he is running the risk of falling so far behind everyone else due to being permanently injured. And on that subject, I see last Saturday was Justin McMahon's first start for Tyrone since 2011! No wonder he has looked so off the pace in recent times.

Slightly off subject, Boc, how good is Mark Bradley? How was he with your seniors last year?

honest answer TC not sure he is any better than what he have already.

A gifted skillful footballer but size would be a issue. Game as a pheasant but i would wonder were to play him to get most out of him.

in championship semi final he played as part of 2 man FF line and was largely anonymous (not all his fault though). We then moved him out to the half forward line and he almost turned the game for us he got a couple of quick scores. Very fast and elusive but would be too small for senior county football yet.

Though look at Cooper, nothing to him and he survives

bocerty wrote:honest answer TC not sure he is any better than what he have already.

A gifted skillful footballer but size would be a issue. Game as a pheasant but i would wonder were to play him to get most out of him.

in championship semi final he played as part of 2 man FF line and was largely anonymous (not all his fault though). We then moved him out to the half forward line and he almost turned the game for us he got a couple of quick scores. Very fast and elusive but would be too small for senior county football yet.

Though look at Cooper, nothing to him and he survives

True, although Cooper would be taller than Bradley. No, I asked as I liked him last year. Even when we were struggling to get back against Meath, he was demanding the ball, laying it off and moving into space for the return - I thought he showed a lot of football awareness and no shortage of leadership. He is also, as you say, very skillful.

I wonder how many small men you can carry nowadays. For instance, Bradley would be similar to Ronan O'Neill and Darren McCurry, all very talented and dangerous, but can you get away with playing even 2 of that type of player? Perhaps in a certain system, but not in a 2 man full-forward line.

On last year's minors, Sean Hackett would have been the one Id've seen progressing to senior most quickly, mainly due to his electric pace and bigger frame. Unfortunately, not playing football is now the least of his worries.

Thomas Clarke wrote:

bocerty wrote:honest answer TC not sure he is any better than what he have already.

A gifted skillful footballer but size would be a issue. Game as a pheasant but i would wonder were to play him to get most out of him.

in championship semi final he played as part of 2 man FF line and was largely anonymous (not all his fault though). We then moved him out to the half forward line and he almost turned the game for us he got a couple of quick scores. Very fast and elusive but would be too small for senior county football yet.

Though look at Cooper, nothing to him and he survives

True, although Cooper would be taller than Bradley. No, I asked as I liked him last year. Even when we were struggling to get back against Meath, he was demanding the ball, laying it off and moving into space for the return - I thought he showed a lot of football awareness and no shortage of leadership. He is also, as you say, very skillful.

I wonder how many small men you can carry nowadays. For instance, Bradley would be similar to Ronan O'Neill and Darren McCurry, all very talented and dangerous, but can you get away with playing even 2 of that type of player? Perhaps in a certain system, but not in a 2 man full-forward line.

On last year's minors, Sean Hackett would have been the one Id've seen progressing to senior most quickly, mainly due to his electric pace and bigger frame. Unfortunately, not playing football is now the least of his worries.

hes an honest lad TC and would give his last breath for the cause. He would never give up no matter how many knock backs he got.

Given the size of some of the defenders he could come up against i would worry about throwing him into a senior team.

He is not likely to get much taller - he has 2-3 brothers all right good footballers but none of them are tall. He could bulk up to look after himself but that may take away from his speed too.

Congratulations to Cookstown Fr Rocks on another All Ireland Success. The Tyrone and Ulster champions beat Finuge of Kerry 1-9 to 0-6. The Owen Mulligan led Fr Rocks led by a point at the break but turned on the style in the second half to ease home to a more than comfortable win.

By all accounts Mr Galvin should have been sent of 3 times!!! Finuge finished with 13 men though Galvin did somehow stay on the pitch for the entire game. Fr Rocks became the first club to win the Intermediate title twice.

Great win for Cookstown, I've been in touch and should hopefully be covering their win for my next book.

In more immediate matters, here's my take on Tyrone's win over Mayo [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

emmetryan wrote:Great win for Cookstown, I've been in touch and should hopefully be covering their win for my next book.

In more immediate matters, here's my take on Tyrone's win over Mayo [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

interesting insight Emmet, as a matter of interest how many times would you watch a game to put something like that together.

Also do you work with an teams, you'd be a useful man to be involved in any team setup

With the league just the once fully through but I stop and rewind individual plays several times, and for that I am grateful to the tolerance of my flatmate. Try to do champo games twice fully through.

I haven't worked with teams directly but a few have approached me for advice on what they're doing and I've been happy to help. The downside to committing fully to a team is that I'd have to halve what I do for the blog as it would take too much time. This way I get to see a broader selection of games.

Well done Cookstown, and well done Mugsy! Got a lot of stick from some Tyrone fans down the years, but we were always a better side when he was fit and hungry. By all accounts, a very popular fella within the Tyrone panel.

bocerty wrote:
Also do you work with an teams, you'd be a useful man to be involved in any team setup

Emmet, what Boc is really wondering, is could you do anything with a side (e.g. Killyclogher), who held their opponents to 0-5 in last year's Tyrone SFC semi final, and still couldn't beat them?!

Would definitely be willing to have a look at what they're doing and give some advice.

Boc, if you want to email me drop me a line emmetATaction81.com naturally replacing the AT with @

Emmet, I haven't seen the Tyrone game yet (will later in the week), but did listen to it on the radio. I thought the commentary and analysis from Mike Finnerty, John Casey and Billy Someone on Mayo's Midwest Radio was very informative.

However, they referred frequently to Paddy McNeice playing as a sweeper between the 2 McMahons, whereas your conclusion implies that Tyrone didn't do this, but it would be a option in the future. As you saw it, where did McNeice actually play?

I didn't see a clear sweeper from Tyrone, if McNiece was meant to be one he wasn't obvious in the role by any stretch. Part of me thinks it may be just a matter of execution, which wouldn't require a fix to the formation. If they do adopt a sweeper, I think they have the pace up front not to be hampered by losing a man further forward so long as they get supporting players up.

Thomas Clarke wrote:Emmet, I haven't seen the Tyrone game yet (will later in the week), but did listen to it on the radio. I thought the commentary and analysis from Mike Finnerty, John Casey and Billy Someone on Mayo's Midwest Radio was very informative.

However, they referred frequently to Paddy McNeice playing as a sweeper between the 2 McMahons, whereas your conclusion implies that Tyrone didn't do this, but it would be a option in the future. As you saw it, where did McNeice actually play?

Billy FitzPatrick TC. A real gentleman. Was at his brothers funeral a few weeks back and all the Fits's are good folks. Mike Finnerty is as good a commentator as you will find as well.

Mike came in quite handy during the games I went to in Castlebar in the autumn. Having a commentator beside you who doesn't need to read numbers to know names from that distance is quite handy

emmetryan wrote:I didn't see a clear sweeper from Tyrone, if McNiece was meant to be one he wasn't obvious in the role by any stretch. Part of me thinks it may be just a matter of execution, which wouldn't require a fix to the formation. If they do adopt a sweeper, I think they have the pace up front not to be hampered by losing a man further forward so long as they get supporting players up.

Thanks, I'll watch out for it myself when the DVD arrives!

The Mayo commentators also felt that Tyrone were noticeably more defensive than last year when, to be honest, we were very gung-ho. I like the shape that Tyrone are forming, and feel the imbalance of speed over size has been somewhat redressed this year. Having a fit again Sean Cavanagh and Justin McMahon helps enormously in this regard.

emmetryan wrote:Mike came in quite handy during the games I went to in Castlebar in the autumn. Having a commentator beside you who doesn't need to read numbers to know names from that distance is quite handy

I'm not surprised, I was very impressed by the 3 of them, particularly Finnerty and Casey. They were pretty impartial and gave a good audio impression of what was happening on the field. A very good production.

Thomas Clarke wrote:Emmet, I haven't seen the Tyrone game yet (will later in the week), but did listen to it on the radio. I thought the commentary and analysis from Mike Finnerty, John Casey and Billy Someone on Mayo's Midwest Radio was very informative.

However, they referred frequently to Paddy McNeice playing as a sweeper between the 2 McMahons, whereas your conclusion implies that Tyrone didn't do this, but it would be a option in the future. As you saw it, where did McNeice actually play?

Noel McGinn on Teamtalk referred to McNiece dropping very deep to help the half back line TC, i havent seen the full game either so i cant say but the word sweeper was never actually used as such

emmetryan wrote:
In more immediate matters, here's my take on Tyrone's win over Mayo [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

One correction, Emmet. Unfortunately, Tyrone only have 3 home matches to come. I know Boc mislead you on here earlier when he talked about 4, but we are away to Dublin & Kildare!

Ah feck, well you should still avoid the drop. I had you guys and Down pegged at the start of the year /ducks

emmetryan wrote:Ah feck, well you should still avoid the drop. I had you guys and Down pegged at the start of the year /ducks

Well, you'll be half right! To be fair, I had Down & Kildare. Can't imagine too many had Kerry, but that is where they are heading.