Gamesmanship?
Elaborate.
Should they have landed down last week without a collective training session in about a month?
Any man who dispenses with the services of Donie Buckley is not to be trusted. I’d hazard a guess that Keane is a pig of a man behind all the cute hoorism.
Well done @Fulvio_From_Aughnacloy - Limerick will have to make do with only the Liam MacCarthy in 2021.
6/4 on a team facing Mayo in a final, I’ll be having some of that.
Delighted for Mickey Harte, they have to win it for him now.
A lot of the narrative will be anti-Mickey Harte here but it’s not as if this team came from the doldrums. They’ve been there or there abouts in the past few years.
We could just as easily have left that behind today as we did against Kerry in 2015 and 2019 and Mayo in 2016. We had those three games in our grasp but a combination of missed chances, refereeing calls going against us and a sending off in the Mayo game in 2016 swung it away from us. Think we were due a bit of luck today in that respect.
On paper I think Tyrone have better players, they far more down the development line that Mayo are at present but Mayo seem to spook Tyrone a little. They have the ability to storm teams and overwhelm them with their tempo. I still see a lot of stupid things Tyrone do on the ball - the likes of McGeary, Donnelly and Burns had some really stupid wides today.
Mayo will be coming with no inferiority complex and will get wired in, should be a great battle. Hopefully Tyrone do enough on the day but it would be hard to begrude Mayo if they earn it.
Joe speaks @Fulvio_From_Aughnacloy will enjoy this
Trying to win an All-Ireland with a one-man team is a precarious business, as Kerry keep finding out
independent.ie | August 28, 2021 08:53 PM
Expand Close Kerry’s David Clifford during the All-Ireland semi-final against Tyrone. Photo: Piaras Ó Mídheach / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Kerry’s David Clifford during the All-Ireland semi-final against Tyrone. Photo: Piaras Ó Mídheach
Two decades on, Kerry were soon in deep shit. Tyrone were calm and tough, Kerry panicky and rushed. For the first 60 minutes, it was an entertaining contest between Tyrone and David Clifford. But when Clifford got injured after a hospital pass from Seán O’Shea, Kerry were done.
Trying to win an All-Ireland with a one-man team is a precarious business. Kerry, looking like an over-eager under 20 side slightly out of their depth against the real thing, soloed into cul de sacs and hand-passed the ball away on multiple occasions. Had it not been for Clifford, Tyrone would have walloped them.
Expand Close Kerry manager Peter Keane reacts during the All-Ireland SFC semi-final defeat to Tyrone. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile / Facebook Twitter Email Whatsapp Kerry manager Peter Keane reacts during the All-Ireland SFC semi-final defeat to Tyrone. Photo by Brendan Moran/Sportsfile
As it was, the young King of Gaelic Football was unmarkable, kicking eight points and singlehandedly creating the illusion that Kerry are a serious team. But as soon as he was injured (inevitably by the umpteenth awful Kerry hand-pass) that was that.
Beforehand, when Kieran Donaghy was asked for his prediction, he smiled and said: “I’d be worried if it was wet and slippy.”
This was a reminder that Kerry have yet to shed their complacency when it comes to Tyrone. Here, they quickly discovered that Ulster teams are not Clare, and certainly not a Tyrone team backboned by Dooher steel.
My old Derry teammate Fergal McCusker, an infallible predictor of games, told me a fortnight ago that Mayo would beat Dublin.
On Wednesday, he texted to say “Tyrone to win. Kerry a one-man team. They have two feet in the final and have the false comfort of beating Tyrone by 16 points in the league. Tyrone have plenty of buckos in their team who don’t give a f**k. They will come out swinging and Kerry will eventually go down under the pressure.”
Paddy Power, who had Kerry at 1/7, should hire him. He is not expensive. Sponsoring the Watty Grahams GAC annual golf tournament will be enough to persuade him.
The first half ended with the Ulster champions a point ahead, the half-time scoreline reading Tyrone 1-7, David Clifford 0-9, but there was an air of desperation around Kerry and the mood of the contest was strongly with Tyrone.
(RTE half-time competition: Q. Which Pat has eight All-Ireland senior football medals? Is it a) Pat Spillane, b) Postman Pat, c) St Pat’s Athletic, or d) Pat Swayze? Text entries cost a minimum of €4 depending on network provider. Prize: €50 voucher for Pat’s Schoolwear, Main Street, Ardfert (only redeemable in store). No Northerners or Taliban.
Even though they owned Tyrone’s kick-outs throughout, Kerry continued to play amateurish football in the second half, remaining totally reliant on Clifford for scores from play. Seán O’Shea — as always — took his frees beautifully, but he is not at the highest level of Gaelic football forwards.
Rather he is an artist from placed balls and given time, can kick points beautifully from play. However, he is not a top line goal-scorer, nor does he have the pace or craft to open a defence like Tyrone’s.
Here, he got one point from play. This came about after Clifford had sent him through on goal with a miraculous hand-pass over his shoulder while he was falling to the ground in the opposite direction.
Presented with the goal chance, O’Shea panicked and just about drove the ball over the bar. Like his other four forward colleagues he was nervy and anonymous, Tyrone calmly swatting them aside.
When the goal chances came for Kerry, they were spurned as a result of this panic. First, with the goal at their mercy in the 21st minute, and Niall Morgan stranded, Paul Geaney hurriedly hand-passed the ball at Stephen O’Brien’s feet. O’Brien, meanwhile, had for some reason stationed himself well inside the square, so when he palmed it to the empty net it was immediately disallowed.
The second botched goal chance was the final disaster, O’Shea crippling Clifford in the 66th minute with a telegraphed hand-pass when a dummy and pause would have left Clifford with an easy palm-in.
Tyrone’s psychological hold over Kerry (save for Clifford) was obvious throughout. This manifested itself in the way Kerry soloed until they over-carried, hand-passed the ball away and rushed their shots.
A flavour: Cillian Spillane over-carried (40). Seán O’Shea hand-passed the ball away (41). Killian Spillane was easily blocked when he took a panicky shot for goal (42). Mike Breen soloed until he stumbled and fell over, resulting in a Tyrone free (47). Stephen O’Brien over-carried — free out (52). Jack Barry hand-passed to Con Kilpatrick (57). Paul Murphy kicked the ball over the sideline after falling mid-solo (61) and so on and so forth.
Tyrone had them by the balls. Cathal McShane and the son of God came on and made excellent contributions.
Both will be fit for the final. This Tyrone team are a tight, happy group. They love Dooher and Logan. They are tough and ruthless and full of football. Like Milwall, no one likes them, but they do not give one damn.
At the final whistle, all that remained was for Pat Spillane to go and have a good puke.
Mickey was clearly holding them back, he was a useless cunt for the last decade or so
I disagree. He kept them at the top table when counties who had varying degrees of success in and around that era like Meath, Armagh, Galway and Cork fell off the scene.
Harte has taken lots of abuse in the past for persisting with players.
Colm Cavanagh was one. He eventually turned into a mainstay for Tyrone and a key man.
Cathal McShane was another. He turned into an All Star and top scorer in the championship.
Meyler, McGeary and Burns were three others he got slated for persisting with. All three were immense today, if Tyrone get over the line in a fortnight it’s hard to look past McGeary for FOTY.
The time was obviously right for change. Dooher and Logan have came in and reenergised the sqaud but I think Harte left Tyrone football in a very healthy shape.
Maybe had he had guys like McShane, McKenna and Canavan around for a bit longer then who knows?
You would have to fancy Tyrone. Today wasn’t a great spectacle but for Tyrone it blew out a lot of cobwebs. Mayo will be coming in with a six week break? Not ideal
4 week break.
Still not ideal
Tyrone picked the dates. 🤷
He consistently tried to win all Ireland’s when he didn’t have the squads to do so, if he had taken stock and developed players for the medium term I believe Tyrone would have won more and genuinely challengd for the all Ireland between 2012-2017. He deserves great credit for the center of excellence, his time was also yonks ago and he just clung on like a leach. He is clearly a dinosaur
But he did develop players.
McShane a prime example, he showed tremendous faith in him. I’ve been at games when McShane was playing out at wing forward or midfield and doing daft things and getting it tight from his own fans. Harte kept faith with him, he kept faith with the likes of McGeary and Meyler too. He saw something in those players. People have an axe to grind with him but a lot of it is personal and totally unfair.
The team is not that much different. McCurry is probably the only natural scoring forward in that team. Donnelly and Sludden are link men really, McKenna is a middle third player and McGeary and Meyler are workers.
Harte did great job developing players. Logan and Dooher have came in and added some energy to the players, things had gone stale and certain players do seem to have taken that confidence on board but personnel wise, not a whole lot has changed and neither has it in result terms.
Tyrone lost by 3 to Kerry in 2015 and 2019 I think. Won by 1 AET today.
We lost by 1 to Mayo in 2016 - games of small margins for error than probably hinged on small incidents.
We negotiated Donegal and deserved our win but had Murphy buried the ridiculous award of a penalty against us we were 5 points down and a man down (for 10 mins) against Donegal in the first half - probably season over.
We scraped past Monaghan in the Ulster final - preparations not ideal with Covid in the camp in the buildup but we got through - could easily have been different though.
Dooher and Logan deserve immense credit but I find some of the commentary completely biased and unfair with regard to Harte.
Anyone think apart from last 5 minutes and extra time that the game was absolutely rubbish?
I have always been a Tyrone supporter in football, I love their mentality and was overjoyed today.
Harte has been miles off the pace tactically for years, he has done us no good for the bones of a decade now.
He left lots on the table and overstayed his welcome
Horan has done a great job, if he is bold enough to drop O’Shea they’ll go a long way to winning.
AOS simply can’t move around the pitch enough nowadays.
It was muck
Have you ever watched a match that you enjoyed pal?
You are forever giving out.
You thought that was a good game? Must be easily pleased. Was bored out of mind for 65 minutes.
It wasnt a classic, but it was intriguing to be fair.
65th minute onwards was very good I thought.