I sat down to watch Derry and Tyrone on Sunday having heard a lot of talk about the history of this fixture, including the 100-year-long rivalry and the thorny relationship between the two counties. It surprised me and I felt it was blown out of proportion.
Where is the evidence of this passionate rivalry? I’m not sure it exists as much as was depicted in the build-up, but it did set the match up as a kind of thunderous confrontation between two teams that would not yield an inch. That is why it was all the more deflating to realise, as a neutral, that there was only going to be one winner after just ten minutes of play.
There is no doubt that Tyrone were very slick, as well as being accurate and impressive in their execution of their game plan. But I spent Sunday evening and most of yesterday trying to figure what it was that Derry hoped to achieve in the game. I still don’t know.
They actually started quite well defensively and won a free which they converted in the first few minutes. But after that it was all downhill. Time and again as they attacked, they had 10 or 11 players spread across the offensive 45 with no option inside them and lateral ball movement. To what end?
Derry’s game plan has, for quite a while, been based on possession football. They retain the ball and look for openings. This played into Tyrone’s hands. Derry took the ball into contact so many times which gave Tyrone the opportunity to create turnovers. And because Derry had spread so many players across the Tyrone 45, it meant they had a maximum of two defenders back down the pitch along with their goalkeeper. So they had absolutely no balance in their team.
The build-up was based on “keep-ball” and sooner or later someone would take the ball into contact. It was inevitable that a Derry player would be caught. For Tyrone’s first goal it was their full back, Brendan Rogers. And then Tyrone attack at pace: six of them running hard with acres of space to work in. This is the moment you are waiting for as an intercounty coach. Tyrone will run the ball all day long. But they will kick long too if the opportunity is there. So the ball was kicked in and Ronan O’Neill did the damage inside.
Defensive intensity
The concession of that goal was naive in the extreme from Derry. I wouldn’t be too hard on the defender marking O’Neill. He is marking a very dangerous player and if you are not proactive in trying to cancel out the space, the advantage is almost always with the forward when he wins the ball in that position.
Then came Seán Cavanagh’s point after Tyrone won the next kick-out and with that the game had already swung in their favour.
Your job in championship football is to give the opposition nothing. Work like a demon and hope they offer you opportunities to make inroads. And Derry almost never did that on Sunday. They made it easy for Tyrone to do what they wanted to do. Danny Heavron’s point for Derry was one of the very few times when someone just decided to make an incision: put the shoe down and have a go.
Why did Derry not push up on Tyrone’s short kick-out? The Tyrone players were soloing upfield with no real pressure. If you look at Cathal McShane’s first-half point, you notice something about Niall Holly’s defensive intensity just before McShane takes possession: it wasn’t there. It seemed the fight had gone out of Derry just 10 minutes in.
The gear shifts within Tyrone’s transition game and the vision they had in terms of what they wanted to do with the ball was the difference. Derry played keep-ball with no definite methodology or purpose at the end of it. And keep-ball for the sake of it means you give the opposition more time to get organised to steal the ball off you and exploit the spaces you leave.
What Derry required, I felt, was a couple of big men inside which would give them a threat in the air and also occupy Tyrone sweeper Colm Cavanagh. But they also needed an aggressive running game: coming at Tyrone in fours and fives.
Tyrone’s third score highlighted the world of difference between the teams. A ponderous build-up by Derry. Niall Toner kicks under pressure into the square and Tyrone pick up the break. A few seconds later, Tyrone are at the other end of the field with purpose and intent and handing to ball to O’Neill on the loop. And what the Derry defender was doing in terms of trying to mark O’Neill in this instance I do not know. To let him pick up possession, turn uncontested and shoot?
It is basic defensive coaching: full backs are there to mark their men to a very extreme degree. They do that for very good reason: full forwards are predators and poachers. They are the guys to whom the manager is saying: we are banking on you to get X amount of scores. The Derry full back should have stayed tight with O’Neill all the way.
It is up to the half back or midfielders to close those half-spaces in front of the D. It is not up to the full back. His job is to mark the full forward. So you are thinking: what is going on here? It is about squeezing percentages and not handing easy advantages to the opposition.
Because of all those signs, after 10 minutes you knew that the game was essentially over. There was a glaring disparity between the depth of the game plan both sides were operating off and in the ability of the players to execute the same.
Speculative shots
It’s not about simple football ability. For instance, Mark Lynch and James Kielt kicked two excellent long-range points for Derry. A theory exists that that is the way to beat the blanket defence. It’s not. It never was. If that is your thinking as a coach, then you are in for a shock when you go into championship football at intercounty level.
In fact, a good defensive coach is banking on the opposition shooting from long range. If you are relying on speculative shots from distance, you are in trouble. For every one that goes over, seven or eight will fall short.
What Derry needed on Sunday was long range points, but they also needed hard runners, runners off the shoulder, people breaking the gain line, quality diagonal ball and a few big men contesting ball in the square. They needed six or seven options to the way they attacked and a varied approach. But this keep-ball back and forth across the park: Tyrone just waited and pounced.
Hats off to Mickey Harte. He reasoned all of these percentages out and then he started to go after them. Tyrone have a very strong, slick running game. They are so well organised defensively and are aggressive in the transition. They were disciplined and focused. They had a really good variation on their kick-outs, which was refreshing.
You could see scores off the training pitch early in the second half: isolate Colm Cavanagh, ball knocked down to Peter Harte and Darren McCurry gets ahead of the ball: really good, simple scores. The evidence of their training work shone through.
Ronan O’Neill’s scores were excellent finishes. Cathal McShane’s was the same. That’s because these are excellent attackers who have won All-Irelands. If you give players like those time and space, they will go to town on you. All day long. So as an opposition, you have to deny them that.
Tyrone’s third goal summed the whole thing up. They ran the ball 120 metres. They passed it seven times and walked it into the net. The big stat in this move, however, was that there was not one Derry tackle made on a Tyrone player.
Right mentality
So after all this talk of 1906 and history and passion, that moment was incredible to behold. This is the Ulster Championship. If you are playing a better team or your game plan isn’t coming off, then at least bring the right mentality. You don’t need skill to run your heart out or to put your body on the line, an attitude that says “I won’t quit”.
Championship is the pinnacle of what players are playing for: why they go to the gym and train hard and sacrifice a social life. It is why they allow football to dominate their lives: for a championship Sunday. And now you are playing your “arch rivals” and you let them run 120 metres with the ball on your home pitch without laying a hand on them? I am struggling with that.
So Tyrone looked good, very good. They will take a lot of stopping in Ulster. But the challenge they met on Sunday was almost non-existent.
The challenge for Tyrone down the track will be the teams that ask the same questions they do. Derry’s overall approach meant that they simply could not win this game. But they needn’t have lost it in the manner that they did.
