Sport

Logan wants to put Tyrone on the front foot but won't be reckless with new attacking approach

Time constraints and limited access to players has hampered the development of a new strategy for the incoming Tyrone management team of Feargal Logan and Brian Dooher Picture: Philip Walsh.
Time constraints and limited access to players has hampered the development of a new strategy for the incoming Tyrone management team of Feargal Logan and Brian Dooher Picture: Philip Walsh. Time constraints and limited access to players has hampered the development of a new strategy for the incoming Tyrone management team of Feargal Logan and Brian Dooher Picture: Philip Walsh.

FEARGAL Logan has insisted he’s committed to turning Tyrone into an attacking force, but he won’t take unnecessary risks in doing so.

The age of the blanket defence has passed, and the Red Hand joint manager is not sorry to see it go.

He wants his team to exude an air of positivity in pursuit of Allianz Football League Division One semi-final success against Kerry tomorrow.

“We are trying to move everybody. It seems as though the old blanket stuff has worked its way through the system. It has naturally gone through its lifespan in one sense,” said Logan.

“We are offensive, and we will always try to be offensive, but at the end of the day, there are different times and different games when you have to adapt.

“It would just be way too straightforward to say that there’s one type of play that prevails over 70, 80 minutes in a football match with 30 men moving dynamically around the field. So there’s lots of different aspects to it.

“But I think the football in the first three games has shown across all the divisions that everybody is of a mind to go for broke and get on with it, and it has thrown up some exciting stuff in all the divisions.”

But time constraints have hampered the development of a new strategy as Tyrone emerge from the Mickey Harte era.

Lockdown separated new bosses Logan and Brian Dooher from their players for months, and the axing of pre-season competition was compounded by the streamlining of a regionalised League which has so far offered just three matches.

“We would have loved the McKenna Cup with four or five games and a bit more time.

“There are other players that we have tried to get game time to, and it has been a very difficult exercise that way, because when we lost our first game, there wasn’t a lot of room for slippage in a three-match league.

“So it has been difficult that way, to try and balance out positions for people and balance out game time for players.

“Hopefully by the time we get around to next year, it will be a more normal year.

“We just have to build week on week and try it. It brings its own risks, but that’s just the abnormal year that we’re dealing with, and we just have to try and mix and match as best we can.”