The Tyrone man spoke to Eoin Sheahan and Ger Gilroy on OTBAM to discuss the change in fortunes of the Tyrone team and what he thinks is the cause.
“There’s a lot of optimism now in Tyrone. This team, the best way for them to go through, was by going the back door. They have unearthed a few new players. Richie Donnelly up front, that’s something that Tyrone has always been missing, a good, big strong target man. Richie Donnelly’s been immense for Tyrone the past few games.
“They’ve sorted out the goalkeeper situation. At the end of the day last year we were in the same situation when we hammered Armagh in the quarter final, and we seen what happened against Dublin. We’re not gonna get ahead of ourselves, we’re in a good place. Things seem to be going in our favour”, McGuigan said.
“We are starting to get the balance right. I do hope that we do play more people up the field. We know it’s gonna be very defensive when you have the ball. It’s gonna be a great occasion on Saturday night and we hope we’ve lessened the gap between Tyrone and Dublin from last year. It’s a big test for this team but we’re going the right road. It wasn’t three or four weeks ago everyone was slating Mickey Harte.
“When Tyrone get to Croke Park, their running game, their counter attack style suits Croke Park. The main thing in today’s game is getting your defensive structure right. Tyrone have worked on that the past three years and are getting it right.
"Kerry, I don’t think are at that level defensively, but forward wise they have a good division. They haven’t gotten that defence right, but Tyrone have. The whole spirit in the team has changed and that comes with winning”.
After discussing Tyrone’s performances, he then went on to discuss their next opponent’s, Dublin and their win over Donegal Saturday night. Here is what Brian had to say.
“It was probably just a good professional job from Dublin. They went out, they done their job, they seemed to be happy enough to get a five or six point victory. I think the main thing they didn’t want was to get any injuries.
“They didn’t give away any of their game plan, it wasn’t a typical Dublin performance. When their main players weren’t playing , different players stepped up. It shows that their panel is getting even stronger. It looks as if Dublin are still gonna be the team to beat”.
