Tactical Analysis: Tyrone vs. Donegal, NFL, 2021

BRIAN Lavery was part of Mickey Donnelly’s backroom set-up when Tyrone reached the All-Ireland Minor Championship final in 2013.

Lavery is also coach at his native Ardboe, pairing up with Donnelly who was appointed manager of the club this season.

We’ve spoken to Brian for a tactical perspective on Tyrone’s defeat to Donegal last Saturday evening.

NG: What did you make of the way Tyrone set up, particularly in comparison with previous years?

BL: The first thing I would say is that I think it’s difficult to analyse that in terms of the whole game as Michael O’Neill got sent off after 40 minutes. If you’re looking to see any subtle changes, you’d be focusing on the first half. Donegal are difficult to play against at the best of times.

Feargal and Brian will be trying to make different changes, but you’re playing Donegal, who have their own unique way of playing, and you might end up playing them in the championship as well. I definitely think there were some subtle things. I do think they tried to keep at least three players up the pitch as much as possible. Richie Donnelly, Paul Donaghy and Conor McKenna stayed up nearly all the time.

NG: What do you make of the fact they went for a more physical forward line and left the likes of McCurry and Canavan on the bench?

BL: Football’s about balance regardless of who you’re playing. If you have all those relatively small men on your team, you have to play a very particular way to try to maximise that. With Richie, Conor and Paul up the pitch, it gives you a different dimension.

NG: What do you think of the role Conor played anyway? He’s such a good runner but mostly played up front.

BL: Sometimes he found himself inside, and sometimes he found himself in the half-forward line. Paul Brennan was marking him most of the time. I don’t think he was playing inside a massive amount. If you look back to the first-half, Richie Donnelly won the ball on the 45, he kicked the ball to Conor on the edge of the ‘D’, who slipped it to Michael O’Neill who scored.

Conor was inside at that point, but you could see other instances where Conor was actually running onto the ball into the scoring zone. I wouldn’t say he was playing inside all the time, if you look at the game, of the three forwards, it was Paul Donaghy who mostly stayed close to goal.

I think people were of the opinion that Conor would come home and play as a full-forward for Tyrone, but having worked with him in 2013, Conor’s real strength is as a runner. He’s an attacking player obviously but he’s very instinctive. They probably had to play him up front last year because the conditioning for AFL is very different than intercounty football.

NG: What did you think of the role Peter Harte and Mattie Donnelly played?

BL: Mattie played in that middle third role which he is accustomed to playing. I thought Peter Harte’s role was interesting. Peter Harte was man-marking Niall O’Donnell, a very tricky forward, and Niall scored one point from play. He didn’t hurt Tyrone massively from an attacking perspective, and Peter Harte still got forward. He had one wide and was up beside Michael O’Neill for that point I mentioned earlier and was in a good position to get a goal.

I think Peter Harte suffers a lot from his versatility. If you think about the roles in the last few years, it’s difficult to play different roles on a regular basis. You might think he was quiet enough but look at the job he was given, he was definitely marking Niall O’Donnell. He scored one point from play and from a managerial perspective you’d be happy with that. To me that looked like part of his job, so from that perspective he did reasonably well.

NG: Is there anything else you picked up from watching the game? Conor Meyler had a very good game.

BL: From the outside looking in, the job he was given was to man mark Ryan McHugh. Who had the bigger influence on the game? Meyler got a point himself, was fouled for a free which Paul Donaghy converted, he was generally busy, and I think Tyrone had a very clear strategy. Rory Brennan man-marked Jamie Brennan, Paudie Hampsey man-marked Michael Murphy, Ronan McNamee was man marking Paddy McBrearty before he went off. At half time, Tyrone brought on Cormac Munroe, and he seemed to man-mark Paddy McBrearty which is a big vote of confidence in him from the management. He did well, he’s very robust.

Collie Holmes is in the set-up and Collie had him as his captain when the u-17s won the All-Ireland in 2017. Feargal and Brian were probably looking to unearth another defender and letting Munroe mark McBrearty shows they must be confident in him. Tyrone more or less used their wing-forwards to man-mark Donegal’s raiding wing-backs as well, and they did a good job, so you got a subtle look that Tyrone are trying to move away from being as systematic as in the past. Again, it was only a subtle change and there were times they had lots of bodies back because you’re never going to have a sea change overnight.

NG: What did you think made the difference for the Donegal? Do you attribute it to the sending off?

BL: I wouldn’t – Donegal are a bit more refined in terms of how they want to play. Their attacking play is very precise. They’ve a very precise way of carrying the ball hard down the wings, and their angled runs from their attackers are excellent. Their conversion rate was way way higher than Tyrone’s. I don’t have the exact stats but I imagine Donegal had half as many wides as Tyrone. If you think about their middle third players, Michael Langan had one shot from play and scored, he’s an excellent shooter. Caolan McGonagle, he had one shot from play and scored.

They definitely had a wider spread of scores. Paul Donaghy got 10 points whereas Michael Murphy was Donegal’s top scorer and he had six points. They’re just a bit more polished than Tyrone at the minute, they’d done their homework and Michael Murphy is just unbelievable. Paul Donaghy was brilliant too, I think he’ll surprise teams. He’s very good off both feet, and he can score from distance with hardly any back-lift which defenders find very hard to deal with.

NG: As an Ardboe man, are you surprised that Michael O’Neill has risen through the ranks so quickly?

BL: Not overly – I was lucky enough to coach Michael from u-13 upwards. Michael was very much on the periphery until he was 16 or 17, but he had a drive to get better, and I couldn’t speak highly enough of the lad. His attitude is absolutely incredible. We were involved with the Tyrone minors in 2014 and Michael didn’t make the panel and he was very unlucky.

He could’ve taken it the wrong way but he knuckled down and asked what he needed to do to get better, got a programme for conditioning and went and did it. It’s a credit to the lad, put it like this – if you had 15 Michael O’Neill’s with that level of desire, you’d be going places.