No Better Tyrone man than our Brian to help out the noisy neighbours.
He may be from tyrone but he is derry to the core when it comes to football. And so far so good he seems to have them going in the right direction. He has unearthed some new players and breathed new life in some more established ones.
1379649 in all fairness Donegal had a strong team the whole time. they were just not coached properly with john Joe Doherty in previous. Jim made them believe. Do Derry have the same calibre of players? I don't think so
Only 3 years ago many would have looked at Donegal and Derry and said they were of similar stock. Donegal 2007 National League division 1 champions. Derry 2008 National League Division 1n champions.
I believe Derry have a very strong bunch of players coming through, and I believe McIver will help them flourish. If they commit to him I believe they can push the big guns of Ulster and possibly win an Ulster title. If they could manage that much, then we could maybe look a bit further down the road.
I felt in recent years Derry were over reliant on Paddy Bradley, who is an outstanding forward. When you look back at their game with Donegal last season, many players were afraid to shoot and most were looking for Paddy. Donegal had him on a tight leash, and effectively shutdown Derry's game.
Donegal and Jim McG have shown what can be done with quality players, and all the right preparation and attitude. Many teams have had one really good year (Donegal 2011) and then not been able to progress. That was their biggest achievement, to be able to push on from the promise of 2011. Mayo are in a similar position this year and I feel that Horan is also a very good coach. If Mayo push on a bit this year, we can say that a template has been set by Jim McG and James Horan, and Pat Gilroy who did the same with Dublin from 2009-2011. None of these teams were favourites to win Sam in the last 3 years.
Yeah I have been having a gut feeling that Mayo will come on very strong this season. James Horan is an excellent coach, who is right up there with Pat Gilroy and Jim McGuinness in my book.
Many people write Mayo off every year, simply as they have lost so many All Ireland finals. But James Horan is at the helm of an exceptionally dangerous Mayo team, who fear nobody and could beat anybody. I wouldn't be suprised if Mayo push on from last year.