Jim McGuinness: Hard to know if Tyrone can return to their 2021 All-Ireland winning levels via IrishTimesSport
As I sat down to watch the game last Sunday, that’s where my head was at on Tyrone – what would they bring to the table? I wanted to see what Tyrone’s response would be to a disappointing 2022.
They started with a lot of confidence, they were feisty in the tackle and forced turnovers. They also pushed up aggressively on Monaghan’s kickouts, forcing Rory Beggan to go long. Those variables combined to create an effective transitional game, and for me that area was the winning and losing of the contest, because the balance of power in that department switched in the second half.
They created these transitional moments in two other ways also – by making contact and turning the ball over, and by winning their own long kickouts and quickly moving the ball forward. In those moments Monaghan hadn’t the capacity to get set up at the back. But that’s not the full story, because you can have 13 men back in a zonal defence inside their 45 metre line or you can have 13 men back inside their 45 but man to man orientated instead. The optics are almost identical but the implications for attacking play can be significant. From early on, because Tyrone favoured the latter, there were openings for Monaghan to exploit.
Monaghan pushed up very aggressively on Tyrone’s kickouts in the second half. The sort of fluency and variety Morgan had in the first half disappeared and he was forced to go longer with more restarts than he might have liked. Monaghan hunted those breaks down and consistently forced turnovers.
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