He has the class, though.
No player is perfect. And that’s why we rarely come across a player that excels in every aspect of the game.
Often, the hardest workers aren’t the most skilful players on the team. Often the most skilful player on the team isn’t the hardest worker.
Maybe the hardest workers are compensating for this perceived lack of skill. They’re mad to succeed in the game and they realise that to do that they’re going to have to work like dogs to make it. They adapt their game.
The naturally gifted lads, the wristiest hurlers, the footballers with the golden feet, the spatial awareness – the works, they know they can make it, obviously with a degree of hard work, but hard work won’t be their main focus.
Take Quade Cooper in rugby, take Ronaldo in soccer. These lads don’t use all of their energy for tracking back.
Teams need a blend. The flair players and the workhorses and it appears like the Tyrone footballers are striking that balance right now.
Lee Brennan is a carbon copy of a flair player. A class player. This is a man who once scored 3-14 in a club game, a man who’s been ripping it up for UUJ in the Sigerson Cup this year.
A great point by Lee Brennan! pic.twitter.com/psLOh743Lp
— The GAA (@officialgaa) February 3, 2018
Brennan knows how good he is. The lads on The GAA Hour know how good he is, and Wooly, Cian and Conan had a great chat about him.
Wooly was impressed with Brennan’s goal, his class, his confidence. He wasn’t bowled over by his work-rate, however, and let’s just say, you couldn’t have a forward line full of forwards out of the Lee Brennan mould.
“Brennan got a goal, it was a beautiful finish,” began Parkinson.
“That was my first time to see Lee Brennan for a full game and I can see exactly why Mickey Harte wasn’t entertaining him. The man only pretends to be working hard.
“He’s actually so lazy he won’t even go down on the ball. He’s one of these lads who’ll just flick it up to himself even on the run. He’s a finisher, this fella – Sean Cavanagh said he’s the best natural finisher in the county.”
It’s a contrast to Mark Bradley, Tyrone’s lively corner forward last year who ran the channels like a man possessed all day long.
“But when you look at it last year and at Mark Bradley’s role. You might as well forget about Lee Brennan doing that roll so that’s why he wasn’t anywhere near the team, but this year, potentially there’s a place for him, because Tyrone are maybe changing their style that little bit more.
Conan Doherty picked a moment from Brennan’s Newbridge performance that exemplified his style of play.
“There was one time, he was coming up the wing, he tried to play a diagonal, outside of the boot pass and there was no way it was on, but he just tried it anyway, and it doesn’t look like he gives a shit…and then he just goes walking back to the forward line, while the rest of them are tracking back for the ball he’s after losing,” laughed the Derryman.
There’s no doubting his class, and as Cian Ward says, it’s the class that’ll win the games.
Lee Brennan sends Michael Fitzsimons for a Mars bar pic.twitter.com/tluL3ucCJX
— Conán Doherty (@ConanDoherty) February 7, 2018
“He’s a great player, though,” said Doherty.
“Lee Brennan’s response to that, though, is, ‘we won 1-16 to 0-18, we would’ve lost 0-18 to 0-16 if I wasn’t the player I am,” added Ward.
Turlough O’Brien interview, Brennan’s flair, Galway’s misuse of Comer and loads more from a packed GAA Hour Show.
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