“The lads always joked that I was doing nothing only standing in the square, and I’d be saying ‘have a look at the stats there’ [laughs]… There were boys could have played the role better than me from a physical point of view, but it’s what’s upstairs sometimes that’s half the challenge.”
Colm Cavanagh, four weeks ago
SINCE Tyrone went into defensive lockdown en-route to the 2015 All-Ireland semi-final, they’ve spent much of the time trying to evolve the other way into the perfectly-balanced outfit.
If it wasn’t already obvious, they are not the only team that brings 15 men behind the ball. To watch Kerry drop back and then eat Monaghan up on the break on Saturday was really only to watch a replay of last year’s All-Ireland final.
Kerry not only do it, but they’re brilliant at it.
Every team, Dublin and all, drops 13, 14, 15 bodies back inside their own 45’ when they don’t have the ball.
The difference is not in how many bodies teams keep up the pitch, but in how quickly they get them back up when the ball is turned over, and how sharply they can turn defence into attack.
From Sunday afternoon’s defeat by Donegal, Mickey Harte will have developed a furrow.
Their shape and Donegal’s shape when they were out of possession were pretty much identical.
The problem was that Donegal did it better.
Although it was a first day out in competitive football, there were glaringly obvious similarities to the Ulster semi-final meeting in Breffni Park last year.
Both games ended in four-point Donegal wins where the margin only offered flattery to Tyrone.
For three years, 2015, 2016 and 2017, the predominant focus of Tyrone’s play was on restricting the opposition.
In reaching two All-Ireland semi-finals and a quarter-final, they conceded 12 goals in 17 Championship games. They also kept 12 clean sheets (71 per cent).
Niall Morgan missed the first game against Cavan when they leaked three and two more were meaningless notches in a replay that saw Tyrone score 5-17.
In 2018 and 2019, when they pushed the boat out a bit, Colm Cavanagh’s role altered in that he was more often left to his own devices as the sweeper, and given the freedom to push out.
Across those two Championship years, Tyrone conceded 17 goals in 20 games. They kept just five clean sheets (20 per cent).
Yet they reached an All-Ireland final and were halfway to another when the whole thing fell to pieces against Kerry.
The real worry for Mickey Harte is that without Colm Cavanagh and Cathal McShane, the centrepiece of how they operated at the two ends of the pitch has been taken away.
Their defensive shape was very obvious at the weekend. They tried to save Conor McKenna a bit of work on his first day out, and he was largely the only man who stayed up the pitch.
On the occasions he was back, he joined a line of Conor Meyler, Darren McCurry, Kieran McGeary and Conall McCann, positioned on their own 45’ to meet the runners first.
Mattie Donnelly and Tiernan McCann protected the pockets behind them, with Niall Sludden and Michael McKernan wide of them in effectively another line of four.
Rory Brennan tagged Michael Murphy around the park, while Liam Rafferty (on Jamie Brennan) and Ronan McNamee (on Oisin Gallen) were the detailed man-markers.
In front of them were Padraig Hampsey, who covered Tyrone’s right post, and Frank Burns, who sat to the left.
But when Donegal got a chance to run at them before the Tyrone cover was set, there was a real sense of panic in the visiting side’s rearguard.
On top of Cavanagh’s absence, Mattie Donnelly sitting closer to the 45’ than his own goal seemed to suit Donegal.
His ability to protect the goal was something that they missed badly.
The two Donegal majors were very poor from a defensive standpoint. Peadar Mogan sold a nice dummy on the first one, but not a dummy that takes out three men. Frank Burns stepped out very early and when Mogan shimmied, he had 35 yards to go and nobody in white standing in his way.
On the second goal, the sheer magnetism of Michael Murphy draws five men to the ball. And by all stepping out they allow Jamie Brennan to go right in behind them all to slide a tidy finish beneath Niall Morgan.
The Tyrone goalkeeper will have a massive part to play if his team are to turn the tide when they go back to Ballybofey in 10 days’ time.
He had no midfield to hit on Sunday and Donegal preyed on it brilliantly.
Tyrone hung into the game but every so often, the yellow jerseys would really go after their kickout.
Donegal turned three Morgan kickouts in a row to go from 1-5 to 1-4 ahead to four up.
They won two out of three at 2-9 to 1-8 and should have returned more than a point.
Morgan broke the press by kicking right out over the top of it to fire a warning back. His ability to find a short kickout under huge pressure is exemplary, but it won’t always work and when it doesn’t, there is real danger.
Tyrone were still in it at 2-12 to 1-11, but Donegal then created a one-on-one for a long kickout of their own, then won Tyrone’s next restart. They scored off both and the gap went back out to six.
Even though they never quite got away properly, it seemed as though Donegal’s ability to turn the screw for five and ten-minute periods was something Tyrone just couldn’t live with, in midfield or defensively.
They preyed a bit on Cavanagh’s aerial absence in midfield and at full-forward, where Michael Murphy spent long periods of the game crying out for it to be put above his head in a straight contest with Rory Brennan.
Harte will be looking towards Conn Kilpatrick or Richie Donnelly, if not both, to try and give them a fighting chance in the middle of the field.
The middle of their defence needs to hold its ground and not get sucked to the ball.
That Brennan is now likely to miss the championship games means Padraig Hampsey will almost certainly tail Murphy.
Expect to see Mattie Donnelly in one of the deeper sweeping roles knowing that despite all the signs of worry, a clean sheet could go a long, long way.
