WEA Supplement - Flipbook - Page 14
14
FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 10 2021
www.irishnews.com
IN ASSOCIATION
WITH
Irish News columnist and Gaelic Games
analyst Kevin Madden looks at where
this year’s intriguing All-Ireland
decider can be won and lost and
considers what each county
now needs to do to finally annex
Sam Maguire after six years
of Dublin domination...
O
N Sunday, September
23, 1951, Sean Flanagan
climbed the steps of the
Hogan Stand to lift and
bring home the Sam
Maguire to Mayo for the third time.
Had he been still living today, the
former Fianna Fáil health minister
would be in his 100th year.
Apart from the sole surviving
player, Paddy Prendergast, there
can’t be many of the 78,201 people
in attendance that day left in this
world to tell the first-hand tale of
the last time the men from Mayo
reached the Holy Grail.
Yet here we are, some 70 years
later. Ten finals lost since 1989 is a
damning statistic that would nearly
make you think there has to be
something to the great tale of ‘the
Foxford curse’.
Despite the baggage of all those
defeats, the pressure or expectation
on Mayo doesn’t seem as great this
time around, even though they are
the slight favourites.
Perhaps it is because this is a new,
youthful Mayo team who have made
a seamless transition to become
All-Ireland contenders for the
second year in-a-row.
Most of the side don’t carry the
baggage of multiple defeats. In fact,
when you compare the starting
team that lost the 2017
All-Ireland final to Dublin,
and the starting team
that lined out against
the Dubs in last
month’s semi-final,
only four players
remain – Paddy
Durcan, Lee
Keegan, Aidan
O’Shea and Kevin
McLoughlin.
That’s an incredible
transition in a short
period to still remain
at the top table.
Mayo have been the
unluckiest team in GAA
history to have had their best
generation of players during a
period when the greatest Gaelic
football team of all-time had theirs.
Like Tyrone, they too well know
what it feels like to be torn apart by
the Sky Blue machine on All-Ireland
final day.
With the Dublin juggernaut now
in hibernation, Mayo won’t fear
Tyrone. But the feeling is well and
truly mutual.
With Kerry and Dublin out of the
way, this group backboned by a
former All-Ireland-winning U20
side, will hold no inhibitions or
fears of the perennial chokers.
The bond between players and
management is strong.
Both teams brought a savage
intensity to their semi-finals that
Dublin and Kerry respectively just
couldn’t live with – and you can
expect more of the same.
This final has all the potential to
be a classic of two teams going
toe to toe with nothing to lose and
everything to achieve.
Mayo don’t know any other way.
And in beating Kerry, Tyrone have
found a footballing identity under a
fresh new management team.
Mayo won the old Sam three times.
Tyrone won the new one three
times. This is the fight for four. It’s
kill or be killed...
ALL-IRELAND SFC FINAL
OUT OF THE
HAVE TYRONE CHANGED
THEIR STYLE UNDER
NEW MANAGEMENT?
H
AVING worked with
the team in 2019-2020, I
have been asked several
times over the last few weeks to
describe what I think has changed
about Tyrone’s playing style under
this new management team.
There is no doubt there will be a
freshness and a different dynamic
formed within the group.
The bond among the players and
management has formed and,
regardless of playing style,
they are all buying into it.
The atmosphere is
unsurprisingly good.
However, the
narrative that they
have deserted
a Mickey Harte
ultra-defensive
game for a freeflowing attacking
model doesn’t
stack up.
Tyrone started three
defensive players
in their attack against
Kerry in the semi-final.
Wearing number 11, Michael
O’Neill tagged, covered and played
most of his game in the defensive
half.
Niall Sludden (inset), wearing 12,
played at right half-back, picking
up Stephen O’Brien, while Conor
Meyler, wearing 10, picked up Paudie
Clifford, the Kerry corner-forward.
That left McCurry, McKenna and
Mattie Donnelly as traditional
forwards. Nearly all of Tyrone’s
turnovers came in the defensive half
where they had condensed the pitch
and saturated it with bodies that
were executing savage work-rate.
The press generally started on the
halfway line, but on many occasions
they played with 15 men behind the
ball inside the defensive 50.
I direct you to a turnover won by
Niall Sludden on the half-hour mark.
As he broke from the D, every single
Tyrone player, including Darren
McCurry, were back inside their
defensive 50 working to get the ball
back.
When you are leading a game against
Kerry, you first of all defend the
move to the utmost of your ability
and if that works then it is about
getting into as offensive an attacking
shape as quickly as possible.
That is modern-day game
management. At the minute, Tyrone
are executing both sides of their
game superbly. The ‘bathwater’ may
have gone – but the ‘baby’ is still
there for sure.
ROUTE ONE WON’T CUT IT
A
GAINST Kerry, Tyrone took the
bold step of refusing to explore
the option of hitting any short
kick-outs, unless it was the glaringly
obvious easy thing to do. Conor
McKenna was the target for the first
kick-out of the game – but Kerry
won the break.
The next one, Brian Kennedy was
the target, but the result was the
same. Of Tyrone’s first six restarts,
five went long and four of those were
won by Kerry.
The one long kick that Tyrone
actually did win actually looked like
a miskick that fell into the path of
Conor McKenna. The approach was
all too predictable, perhaps glazed
over a little by them winning the last
four of the first half.
At the other end, Kerry won ALL of
their 11 first-half kick-outs. Because
Tyrone won the game, the easy thing
to conclude is that the ends justified
the means. But when you lose 15 out
of 21 kick-outs in a half, you need
everything else to go right.
You need a referee sympathetic to
your aggressive in-your-face tackling
style, because turnovers become
your oxygen.
Had Tyrone lost by a point, and that
could have happened, big questions
would have been asked about (A)
Why did Tyrone just thump the ball
out long all game when they were
only breaking even? And B) Why
did they not attempt to put more