THE Red Hands could leave a few critics with red faces this summer, believes Tyrone captain Sean Cavanagh.
The Ulster champions have been labelled negative, told that they must be much more attacking in order to win another All-Ireland.
However, Cavanagh insists "we might surprise a few people" this year in terms of the way they play, arguing that they're much more flexible tactically than many think.
"As a player, you can accept that criticism whenever things don't go as well as they should do – but you have to analyse it.
"I can take criticism from the guys who have been to all the games and understand what we were trying to do in the games.
"There were certain games in the National League this year that we did push up, and we pushed up very high, and we tried to play virtually a 15 v 15, man v man game.
"It didn't always work out well for us. I suppose we have to play to our strengths."
Yet that doesn't mean reverting to only one way of playing, he declares: "Do I think we're a one-trick pony with only one style of play? Not in a million years.
"I do believe we will change, we have changed, and we will continue to tweak things. They're tweaked on a game-by-game and day-by-day basis.
"I'm not sure why we've been totally labelled with this. In 2013 we did drop an awful lot of players back quite deeply and we did it to a fair bit of success. It maybe suited us and the type of players we had.
"We have changed that system – I don't think people always understand what we're trying to do, but as a players' group we understand. We know what we're trying to achieve, we know how we can change things within games."
The Moy man insists that other leading counties deploy similar tactics to Tyrone: "Dublin drop as many men back as we do at times; Mayo do something similar. Kerry do that, I've seen it first hand. All those teams can be as snarling and as tough as a Donegal or a Tyrone – but for some reason we get the bad publicity."
Cavanagh is optimistic about his county's chances, and not just in this Sunday's Ulster SFC semi-final against Donegal:
"We might surprise a few people, just put it like that, as the summer goes on. I don't think people have us read right, we're not just the way they believe we are.
"They think we are this team that can only play a certain way. I believe we have much more flexibility than that – and I imagine it will come to the fore at some point…
"We've had a fair turnover of players but I do believe the blend we have isn't far away. We have an awful lot of guys in that 22 to 26 bracket; me in the 'way, way, shooting through the roof' bracket; and the likes of Colm [Cavanagh] and Justy [McMahon] around the 30 bracket.
"In '13 it was maybe a wee bit early for us. I was disappointed because I thought we were there last year in terms of having the right parts of the puzzle.
"I have to believe this year is going to be that time…I believe we have the talent, we just now have to get that last wee couple of per cent, which might be the finishing, might be the last pass".
