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Post by glengael on May 27, 2015 9:58:38 GMT
Darragh Ó Sé: Best blanket defence based on blistering counterattack Monaghan’s blanket is more evolved than Cavan’s and they did homework better too
So that’s it, I suppose? No more sledging. All sorted. The Cavan v Monaghan game on Sunday passed by without any incident. Nothing on camera, no complaints from either side. All sweetness and light. Ulster football for altar boys.
I doubt it somehow. What that looked like to me on Sunday was a classroom that is after having the riot act read to it by the teacher. The law is laid down. All the messing stops, but only for a while. The teacher gets a good five or 10 minutes of silence.
In that scenario, you don’t want to be the first fella caught. You don’t mind being the second or third fella because the heat is gone by then and it’s all back to normal. The first lad will get the pasting from the teacher. After that, it’s a free-for-all.
The sledging is just at that five-to-10-minute period right now. The whole class knows not to step out of line just for the minute. Too many eyes, too many ears. But the summer is long and it’ll all start up again before you know it. Nothing surer.
I enjoyed that game on Sunday. Monaghan try to play a bit of football, whereas Cavan are more limited and one-dimensional. There’s no go-to guy for them – basically, there’s no Conor McManus to produce a few magic points out of nowhere. They attack in an ad-hoc kind of way, improvising, hoping, depending on wing-backs to kick points with the outside of the boot from 50 yards to give them a bit of momentum.
But that will only get them so far.
Bigger team with more options The best teams have the best options. Monaghan had an option that Cavan didn’t. McManus was able to give them something that Cavan couldn’t match. As they go forward through the summer, they’re likely to come up against a bigger team with more options and McManus alone won’t be enough for them.
There were two aspects of the game I found really interesting – the blanket defences and the goalkeepers. Blanket defences are with us now and will be with us into the future. The best are the ones that become more refined and are used as springboards for wing backs and corner backs to bomb forward. Those are the ones we will see in Croke Park in August.
The best use of that system depends on players covering for each other. One goes up, another drops into his space to cover it off. It’s move and cover, slot in and slot out. And unless you’re doing it automatically, you will lose your shape and if the opposition is patient enough and observant enough, they will hurt you.
To execute the blanket system properly, you need a team full of guys who play without emotion. They don’t get rushes of blood to the head and start trying mad individual stuff. They buy into the system and they trust it. Total faith is the key.
One point that Monaghan scored at the start of the second half was fascinating, I thought. Karl O’Connell sprinted up from wing back straight from the throw-in. It was a brilliant burst of pace and power. He left his own man for dead and broke through the Cavan defence.
He did it at the start of the first half as well, so it was obviously no accident. Those were the two times in the whole game where Cavan would only have six defenders back. So he gave it everything he had both times.
I don’t know if people properly realise what it feels like to go on a lung-bursting run like that on a big championship afternoon. The place is buzzing, the crowd is roaring, the temperature is high. Everything is heightened.
I guarantee you that if you brought young O’Connell back there the following day and timed him making the same run from where he got the ball to where he scored his point, he would be slower doing it no matter how much effort he put in. The simple reason is that the adrenaline won’t be the same. The urgency can’t be replicated. Atmosphere has an effect.
It was an excellent score. I even loved the way he threw himself to the ground to save himself getting decorated by the goalkeeper at the end. He was going at such a pace that he could have been poleaxed very easily with no real price to the goalkeeper, so he dived full-length and used the fact that he had his hands out in front of him anyway to spare him as he hit the deck.
But the point itself isn’t what really grabbed me. It was what O’Connell did in the aftermath of it. Go back and watch it again – Cavan take the kick-out but he doesn’t so much as lift his head to see where it went. He is part of a system and the whereabouts of the kick-out isn’t his concern.
I watched him the whole way back because the camera zoomed out and you could see him at the bottom of the screen. He was looking at the ground for the most part, running in a straight line back to his own 45. The game was going on but he wasn’t a part of it. All that was on his mind was to get back, get set, get in position.
The ball could have whizzed over his head and he wouldn’t have known a thing about it. All it was about for him was to get his body back there. He didn’t even have to do much when he got there – the important thing was that by the time Cavan worked the ball far enough up the pitch, his white shirt could be seen in position.
It’s like going to a funeral. You don’t necessarily have to go and shake everybody’s hand when you’re there – as long as you’re seen to be there, it’s usually enough.
O’Connell’s white jersey being back in the vicinity of the wing-back position fulfilled his role after scoring the point. It cut off options for Cavan and marked off that patch of grass as a no-go area.
This is what the blanket is all about. Cover off angles so that the opposition has to go to a second or third or fourth option with the ball. And playing against a team like Cavan where those options are limited, you should eventually break them down. O’Connell didn’t have to make a tackle but he’d done his job.
And in the best blanket systems, the key is the counterattack. Get the bodies back to close off the options, make them run into blind alleys, cut them off, turn them over and break at pace. Cavan have a decent blanket defence but they haven’t got it right in terms of being able to counterattack.
There is one very noticeable side-effect, however. Defenders do less and less defending these days. When the system is based on numbers, it’s hard to make people accountable. If something is everybody’s job, then it’s nobody’s job.
I thought it was very significant on Sunday after McManus scored his first point from play that his marker Feargal Flanagan turned around and gave out to his team-mates. Flanagan had a very good game, all in all. When you’re playing on someone of McManus’s quality, you’re going to get skinned once in a while.
But I just thought it was interesting that he would turn and berate his team-mates after getting done like that. His complaint seemed to be, “Ah here, am I expected to mark this man on my own?”
When you have a blanket defence, that’s a two-man job at least. That’s where we are now – defenders getting annoyed when they’re left on their own with their man. Safety in numbers, with less and less accountability.
The game is changing all the time and the demands we place on the different players in the different positions are changing with it. Take the Cavan goalkeeper on Sunday, Ray Galligan. He was drafted in under the cover of darkness – never played a game in goal before, an outfield player thrown into his first ever championship game in an alien position.
Cavan obviously felt they could do this because they know that their blanket defence won’t give up too many goal chances. The deal with goalkeepers was always very straightforward – save the easy ones, do your best with the hard ones and make sure and kick the ball good and far out the field. If we’re doing well on the left, keep kicking left. If we’re doing well on the right, keep kicking right.
It’s all different now. Cavan picked him the way the Aussies used pick their goalkeeper in the Compromise Rules. Not just the Aussies, actually. I remember one year we picked Niall Buckley there for Ireland because he could pick out a pass over 50 or 60 yards into your mouth. Whether he could stop a shot or not didn’t come into it.
Under pressure Same with my man on Sunday. He was there for kick-outs and for long-range frees. He’s obviously a very good kicker of a ball but the ability to do it isn’t the issue. The ability to do it under pressure is what matters. You need to keep your nerve above all else.
Monaghan sniffed out very quickly that the Cavan goalie was new to this. They got in his eyeline and waved their hands around and put him off. They covered off the quick kick-outs and made him change his mind – once, twice, three times a lady.
There was a perfect incident for them around the 20th minute. Kieran Hughes ran in until he was about six yards away from the ball and then retreated. The ref whistled at him, Hughes held his hand up. Sorry, ref. My fault, ref. Won’t happen again.
Meanwhile, Galligan went up and came back, up and back. Monaghan forwards spilt between defenders, changing his mind for him. Three seconds, four seconds, five seconds. The crowd started to get on his back. Kick it out! Kick it out!
You could see him thinking he was in trouble here, maybe the ref would come in and hop the ball. Six seconds, seven. Kick it out! He kicked it out, anywhere will do. Blaze it out long, get rid of it. It went straight into the arms of Darren Hughes.
When the short kick-out is taken out of your armoury, you get flustered and you find yourself in a panic. Look at Paul Durcan in the All-Ireland final. One of the best kickers in the game and all of a sudden his mind is scrambled and suddenly the ball is in the net.
The game now is all doing your homework and trusting your system. Those who do it best will be more and more obvious as the summer goes along.
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Post by Mickmack on May 28, 2015 20:28:35 GMT
I enjoyed that one by Darragh.
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Post by kerrygold on May 28, 2015 20:38:55 GMT
It will be interesting to see where Darragh's managerial career goes from here.
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inchperfect
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Post by inchperfect on May 28, 2015 20:51:18 GMT
It will be interesting to see where Darragh's managerial career goes from here. He's definitely the one in the media whose opinion I listen to the most. Really knows what he's talking about so I was surprised he didn't do too well with the under 21s although Eamonn Fitz wasn't a roaring success with them either.
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Post by glengael on Jun 10, 2015 10:11:35 GMT
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Post by glengael on Jun 24, 2015 12:04:31 GMT
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Post by skybluezone on Jun 24, 2015 12:56:41 GMT
As a scribe I wouldn't be his biggest fan, but Darragh makes some good points about Mayo's use of Keith Higgins. I think he's sailing close to the wind with his ideas on how to "mark" Connolly.
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Post by kerrygold on Jun 24, 2015 20:40:38 GMT
Darrragh possibly writes like he viewed the game as a player, a fascinating insight into his football brain. Very interesting reading. Makes his attempts to become a manager all the more intriguing.
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Post by aranteorainn on Jun 25, 2015 12:44:36 GMT
So now one of Kerry's best is advocating "getting " to Diarmuid Connolly to put him off his game , thought Noel O Leary was the only one who ever did that. Funny indeed.
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Jigz84
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Post by Jigz84 on Jun 25, 2015 12:48:34 GMT
The O'Sés have lost the plot in the last week.
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Post by Attacking Wing Back on Jun 25, 2015 12:50:34 GMT
The O'Sés have lost the plot in the last week. How? Apart from Darraghs article
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Jigz84
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Post by Jigz84 on Jun 25, 2015 13:02:24 GMT
The O'Sés have lost the plot in the last week. How? Apart from Darraghs article Tomás' comments weren't too clever IMO anyway.
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Post by fenit67 on Jun 25, 2015 15:24:24 GMT
Tomas gave his opinion on the current Cork team; where is the lack of cleverness there? If anybody is deluded enough to think that what he has to say will have any bearing on how Cork play then seek help as if Cork need that to make them play then they need to question themselves. Dara's article has drawn some ire but again I don't see why. In the past Diarmuid Connolly has been sinner and sinned against and he has not been afraid of handing out both verbals and belts. What was intimated in the article was that testing his mental resolve would be a way of destabilising him. Now many people think that sportspeople inhabit a higher moral plane which is nonsense. Speaking to your opponent is part and parcel of any sport and finding a mental weakness will give you an edge; nothing falacious or of a personal or racial nature need be involved. Knowing how to get into an opponent's head is an art form which when badly done quickly descends into the gutter of sledging.
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Jigz84
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Post by Jigz84 on Jun 25, 2015 15:41:30 GMT
Tomas gave his opinion on the current Cork team; where is the lack of cleverness there? If anybody is deluded enough to think that what he has to say will have any bearing on how Cork play then seek help as if Cork need that to make them play then they need to question themselves. Dara's article has drawn some ire but again I don't see why. In the past Diarmuid Connolly has been sinner and sinned against and he has not been afraid of handing out both verbals and belts. What was intimated in the article was that testing his mental resolve would be a way of destabilising him. Now many people think that sportspeople inhabit a higher moral plane which is nonsense. Speaking to your opponent is part and parcel of any sport and finding a mental weakness will give you an edge; nothing falacious or of a personal or racial nature need be involved. Knowing how to get into an opponent's head is an art form which when badly done quickly descends into the gutter of sledging. Let's see, well the timing for a start! Why did he feel the need to say it? He was on Off The Ball Tuesday last week and there wasn't a sniff of that opinion. I just found it odd is all.
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Post by Annascaultilidie on Jun 25, 2015 16:01:34 GMT
Tomas gave his opinion on the current Cork team; where is the lack of cleverness there? If anybody is deluded enough to think that what he has to say will have any bearing on how Cork play then seek help as if Cork need that to make them play then they need to question themselves. Dara's article has drawn some ire but again I don't see why. In the past Diarmuid Connolly has been sinner and sinned against and he has not been afraid of handing out both verbals and belts. What was intimated in the article was that testing his mental resolve would be a way of destabilising him. Now many people think that sportspeople inhabit a higher moral plane which is nonsense. Speaking to your opponent is part and parcel of any sport and finding a mental weakness will give you an edge; nothing falacious or of a personal or racial nature need be involved. Knowing how to get into an opponent's head is an art form which when badly done quickly descends into the gutter of sledging. Yet Darragh himself says he wasn't a talker on the pitch...
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fg
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Post by fg on Jun 25, 2015 16:35:00 GMT
Tomas gave his opinion on the current Cork team; where is the lack of cleverness there? If anybody is deluded enough to think that what he has to say will have any bearing on how Cork play then seek help as if Cork need that to make them play then they need to question themselves. Dara's article has drawn some ire but again I don't see why. In the past Diarmuid Connolly has been sinner and sinned against and he has not been afraid of handing out both verbals and belts. What was intimated in the article was that testing his mental resolve would be a way of destabilising him. Now many people think that sportspeople inhabit a higher moral plane which is nonsense. Speaking to your opponent is part and parcel of any sport and finding a mental weakness will give you an edge; nothing falacious or of a personal or racial nature need be involved. Knowing how to get into an opponent's head is an art form which when badly done quickly descends into the gutter of sledging. Yet Darragh himself says he wasn't a talker on the pitch... To be fair I wouldn't think Darragh was a talker, he was more of an enforcer if you know what I mean, he did not have to engage in verbals.
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fg
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Post by fg on Jun 25, 2015 16:38:31 GMT
So now one of Kerry's best is advocating "getting " to Diarmuid Connolly to put him off his game , thought Noel O Leary was the only one who ever did that. Funny indeed. The Kraken resurfaces.
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fitz
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Post by fitz on Jun 26, 2015 22:27:50 GMT
Darragh's prodding/poking for a reaction and it seems to be working. I'd say he is say abusing his artistic licenses planting those seeds and from that angle with a large audience to put direct focus on Connolly re: scamp is out of order. Even though the logic is common sense to frustrate Connolly, don't reckon it's appropriate to advertise nationally. Have read Eamonn Carr's two follow up pieces that have descended another level. Very personalized and petty and the Kerry obsession inference with Dublin. Hilarity ensued.
There's nothing wrong imo with Tomas' article period, not a word.
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Post by skybluezone on Jun 26, 2015 22:39:50 GMT
Darragh's prodding/poking for a reaction and it seems to be working. I'd say he is say abusing his artistic licenses planting those seeds and from that angle with a large audience to put direct focus on Connolly re: scamp is out of order. Even though the logic is common sense to frustrate Connolly, don't reckon it's appropriate to advertise nationally. Have read Eamonn Carr's two follow up pieces that have descended another level. Very personalized and petty and the Kerry obsession inference with Dublin. Hilarity ensued. There's nothing wrong imo with Tomas' article period, not a word. Not sure about Darragh looking for a reaction. Why? Surely wait till a Dubs v Kerry game crystallizes before recommending said treatment of DC. Its mischievous at the very least in terms of what he said, and borderline disrepute to be honest.
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fitz
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Post by fitz on Jun 26, 2015 22:48:07 GMT
I think you're agreeing with me? Disrepute is a stretch. A Kerryman is a visionary, he sees not but the next hurdle he will meet but all the ones that might be in his way to get home I mean Sam.
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Post by Mickmack on Jun 26, 2015 22:52:52 GMT
I thought Counihans tactic of using Noel OLeary to try to provoke Paul Galvin into losing his head and getting sent off was despicable. I wouldnt be condoning a similar tactic against Diarmaid Connolly
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Post by skybluezone on Jun 26, 2015 23:54:41 GMT
I thought Counihans tactic of using Noel OLeary to try to provoke Paul Galvin into losing his head and getting sent off was despicable. I wouldnt be condoning a similar tactic against Diarmaid Connolly This.
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Post by Annascaultilidie on Jun 27, 2015 0:42:50 GMT
I call shenanigans!!
DOS was never into this * himself and would see it as a sign of weakness. At the very least he is referencing very tight marking a lá AOM vs Michael Murphy.
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Post by ansúilleabhánach on Jun 27, 2015 4:07:55 GMT
I call shenanigans!! DOS was never into this * himself and would see it as a sign of weakness. At the very least he is referencing very tight marking a lá AOM vs Michael Murphy. Wait til I get my broom!! Have to say as someone who has not always sung the praises of DÓS wordsmithery, that I've really enjoyed this year's output to date. This may sound like heresy in certain circles but I'd fully agree re the tight marking on DC, that it is still possible to shut him out with claustrophobia. Although he does seem to have curbed his temper, which can only be a welcome thing for any true fan of football. I still think there is an element of hindsight and that there have been days he has been poor or anonymous- e.g. the 2013 qf and final (apart from the opening point in the latter, when an overstimulated Cafferkey impetuously drove a free out straight into his hands, where even I would've scored). The 2013 sf he was exceptional but he thrives in such an open game. PS He is a superbly talented footballer, just saying that his armour is not devoid of chinks
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inchperfect
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Post by inchperfect on Jun 28, 2015 16:06:03 GMT
Interesting, I'm reading Paul Galvin's book at the moment and he sort of goes against Darragh's article here. He talks about how Cork would put Noel O'Leary to man-mark him in 2013:
"It was my last round up against Noel O'Leary. He was rolled out to man-mark me again at the last minute. He hadn't been named to start. It was only during the warm-up he was announced. This was as we had expected; Éamonn had flagged it that week. It was a peculiar habit of Conor Counihan's to name dummy teams. Dummy teams? The name says it all, really.
While the Cork manager might have felt he was negating my influence on the game by man-marking me with a secret last-minute selection, in reality we were always using the arrangement to our advantage. You can't double-up on people like Gooch or Tommy or Declan, or James O'Donoghue or Star, or Darran; you can't track runners like Tomás coming from deep; you can't tackle midfielders if they win primary possession. You have one job and that is to stop one particular player. Even that is hard to do with our forwards. While focusing on that you are hanging your fellow defenders out to dry. The arrangement suited us. The rest of our forwards were delighted with it. As a player given a certain task you have no choice but to do as you're told, I guess.
Going one-on-one against the Kerry forward line is foolish. Conor Counihan did it every time, which was amazing to us. Even if I wasn't on the ball I could still create space for others with good movement, or sometimes by no movement at all, by staying out of the way. If our midfielders got ball within reach of the inside line I'd go short for a pass knowing the ball was going over my head into the space I had left. Then our inside forwards were one-on-one. I'd double around and make a support run though usually they never needed it. Noel would track my run and the Cork inside-backs were left to their own devices. Half-backs on a Kerry team would never get away with that. O'Leary was playing under strict instructions, it seemed to me. Maybe there was evidence that man-marking me was an effective way to go about things when I got myself sent off in Páirc Uí Chaoimh in 2009? He was a better player than that. This was a guy who could burst up the field and stick a goal, and did so a few times in his career. Never on me, though. He never seemed concerned with that side of the game in my experience. Liam Sayers, a cousin of my mother's, picked him on his Irish under-17 team to play Australia. He remembers him as a footballer starting out. He could never understand Conor Counihan using him in such a negative manner."
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Post by MrRasherstoyou on Jun 29, 2015 9:03:10 GMT
Interesting, I'm reading Paul Galvin's book at the moment and he sort of goes against Darragh's article here. He talks about how Cork would put Noel O'Leary to man-mark him in 2013: "It was my last round up against Noel O'Leary. He was rolled out to man-mark me again at the last minute. He hadn't been named to start. It was only during the warm-up he was announced. This was as we had expected; Éamonn had flagged it that week. It was a peculiar habit of Conor Counihan's to name dummy teams. Dummy teams? The name says it all, really. While the Cork manager might have felt he was negating my influence on the game by man-marking me with a secret last-minute selection, in reality we were always using the arrangement to our advantage. You can't double-up on people like Gooch or Tommy or Declan, or James O'Donoghue or Star, or Darran; you can't track runners like Tomás coming from deep; you can't tackle midfielders if they win primary possession. You have one job and that is to stop one particular player. Even that is hard to do with our forwards. While focusing on that you are hanging your fellow defenders out to dry. The arrangement suited us. The rest of our forwards were delighted with it. As a player given a certain task you have no choice but to do as you're told, I guess. Going one-on-one against the Kerry forward line is foolish. Conor Counihan did it every time, which was amazing to us. Even if I wasn't on the ball I could still create space for others with good movement, or sometimes by no movement at all, by staying out of the way. If our midfielders got ball within reach of the inside line I'd go short for a pass knowing the ball was going over my head into the space I had left. Then our inside forwards were one-on-one. I'd double around and make a support run though usually they never needed it. Noel would track my run and the Cork inside-backs were left to their own devices. Half-backs on a Kerry team would never get away with that. O'Leary was playing under strict instructions, it seemed to me. Maybe there was evidence that man-marking me was an effective way to go about things when I got myself sent off in Páirc Uí Chaoimh in 2009? He was a better player than that. This was a guy who could burst up the field and stick a goal, and did so a few times in his career. Never on me, though. He never seemed concerned with that side of the game in my experience. Liam Sayers, a cousin of my mother's, picked him on his Irish under-17 team to play Australia. He remembers him as a footballer starting out. He could never understand Conor Counihan using him in such a negative manner." That's very interesting. I've played a bit. I know it's different at the top level. But I remember that if one lad was roaming (like PGalvin did, like Connolly can do) and doing alot of damage, if you put a man on him who can stick to him like glue, it surely curbs his influence, if definitely does. But at the top level, there's alot more going on. Tipp did it with 'King Henry' didn't they, to poor enough effect? I think in that case it was like when Dublin put Curran on Linden, using one of your very best ball-players and attacking influences to man-mark, makes no sense to me. From the psychological advantage it gives to your opponents perhaps more than anything else. Noel O'Leary wasn't really that for Cork, the question is was he up to the job of being tight on Galvin or spent too much time distracted with niggling and *e-hawkery? I'm not sure I understand what Paul is saying there about how they used it to advantage. It sounds more like Noel just wasn't able to stop PG doing what he did.
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inchperfect
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Post by inchperfect on Jun 29, 2015 18:32:19 GMT
That's very interesting. I've played a bit. I know it's different at the top level. But I remember that if one lad was roaming (like PGalvin did, like Connolly can do) and doing alot of damage, if you put a man on him who can stick to him like glue, it surely curbs his influence, if definitely does. But at the top level, there's alot more going on. Tipp did it with 'King Henry' didn't they, to poor enough effect? I think in that case it was like when Dublin put Curran on Linden, using one of your very best ball-players and attacking influences to man-mark, makes no sense to me. From the psychological advantage it gives to your opponents perhaps more than anything else. Noel O'Leary wasn't really that for Cork, the question is was he up to the job of being tight on Galvin or spent too much time distracted with niggling and *e-hawkery? I'm not sure I understand what Paul is saying there about how they used it to advantage. It sounds more like Noel just wasn't able to stop PG doing what he did. I think he means it created more space for our other forwards. Man-marking could work if a team has one outstanding forward and the rest of them won't really do damage, like maybe Cillian O'Connor and Mayo, but marking Galvin out of that Kerry team was a bit odd.
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Post by MrRasherstoyou on Jun 29, 2015 19:18:00 GMT
I presume it was because he was the roaming fulcrum of alot of what Kerry did. Alot of ball went through him. Plus of course there was the reputation of temperament. That worked up to a point but that part of it at least became more of a distraction for Cork. It was also a boring sideshow for neutrals after the first couple of times, with all the media bandwagon waffle and the conspiracy theory hysterics for years
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seaniebo
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Post by seaniebo on Jun 30, 2015 0:50:14 GMT
A lot of to do regarding comments made and what not. I'm not sure what it's all about really. The dog on the street knew what Darragh said long before he said it. Of course someone like Diarmuid Connolly is likely to be targeted for the rough stuff.
Was there much of a point in saying it? No. It's pretty much stating the obvious. 'The lad you're marking today has a bit of a temper. Have a go at him and see what happens'. Words heard in many a dressing room up and down the country at most levels past puberty.
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Post by MrRasherstoyou on Jun 30, 2015 9:40:18 GMT
A lot of to do regarding comments made and what not. I'm not sure what it's all about really. The dog on the street knew what Darragh said long before he said it. Of course someone like Diarmuid Connolly is likely to be targeted for the rough stuff. Was there much of a point in saying it? No. It's pretty much stating the obvious. 'The lad you're marking today has a bit of a temper. Have a go at him and see what happens'. Words heard in many a dressing room up and down the country at most levels past puberty. Exactly. I think the issue was there would have been a national uproar if a contributor in a national paper said the same about Cooper, or even Murphy. It's very honest of DOSé but since when did honesty in GAA debate ever get praised? The culture has always been to say what people want to hear. That begs the question, was DOSé just saying what alot of people wanted to hear?
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