Will Counter-Attacking Be The Order Of The Day?

Derry go into this Ulster Senior Football Championship quarter-final as the odds-on favourites to progress to meet either Armagh or Donegal in the provincial semi-final.

Brian McIver’s Oak Leafers are 8/11 in the match betting market while Derry are just 4/7 to qualify with BoyleSports. Down, on the other hand, are 6/4, a standout price in the industry, to win the game.

Given Derry have home advantage it is reasonable that the layers would be inclined to install a side that has contested Division 1 games thus far this season as favourites and McIver’s charges may win.

However, it was intriguing that talismanic figure Mark Lynch would suggest today that Derry may approach the tie in a more conservative fashion than people think will be the case.

“Sometimes in an open, attacking game you can say to yourself that you will wait for the next kick out and go for it,” Lynch said. “You can’t do that within a defensive system, so it is tougher in that regard. If you do something that you are maybe not renowned [for] or something that is not seen as your strength, then yeah, it is very satisfying. And we worked on that against Dublin. It did work to a certain degree. There were improvements. We still needed to score.

“But, for sure, you do take some satisfaction from holding such a good team to a low score.

“We have been involved in a lot of games where we have played open attacking football and we have been praised for it. But we ended up getting beat. So you do have to weigh the options up.”

It would appear a highly-intense Derry will be attempting to counter-punch Jim McCorry’s visitors by forcing turnovers in the middle-third.

Down’s attacking predicament

How effective, in an attacking sense, will Down be minus the sterling services of Benny Coulter in the Championship?
Additionally, the fact Marty Clarke is still not available to McCorry because of Addison’s Disease makes Down a less than appealing punting prospective.

All the same, if people can rave about the progress of Roscommon than they cannot dismiss Down as a side improving factoring in that the northerners were promoted with John Evans’ side from the second-tier of the league.

Yet, without a playmaker of Clarke’s ilk and finisher as potent as Coulter Down could be snookered.

Recommended bets

This could be a classic case of two sides counteracting and cancelling each other out in Celtic Park, especially with Lynch intimating Derry will not be going gung-ho in the tie.

And punters should be equally shrewd regarding their outlays on this match. In fact, the value may lie in backing the draw at 15/2.
Bettors are bound to get a run for their money by punting on the possibility of a stalemate.

As well as that, a few coppers on the draw/draw double-result at 40/1 with BoyleSports would not go amiss either as this should be tight.

Selections:
Draw @ 15/2
Draw Half-Time/Draw Full-Time @ 40/1