All-Ireland SFC Qualifying round 2B: Tyrone 1-10 Meath 0-11
MICKEY HARTE said there was more in Tyrone’s tank after his side dragged themselves back from the brink to get past Meath on Saturday.
Tyrone’s first half performance matched the grey and drab Omagh weather and, after 50 minutes, they were two points down and heading towards the Championship exit door. But after a Connor McAliskey free scraped over the bar, colour gradually returned in the second period and the Red Hands found fluency and a cutting edge, sharpened by Tiernán McCann’s marauding runs from midfield.
Peter Harte’s nerveless penalty was the crucial score and, from then on, their win never really looked in doubt, although Meath did their best to stay with them.
While Tyrone fans won’t start booking Dublin hotel rooms for September yet, their side will be a force to be reckoned with if they can reproduce what they came up with in the last 20 minutes. Harte, who blooded Richie Donnelly on Saturday and gave a first Championship start to Mark Bradley, was asked if there was better to come from his young side after this victory.
“I believe so,” he said.
“It wouldn’t really be clever to be playing at the top of your game right now because everybody knows it’s very difficult to sustain that over a longer part of the season. If you hit peak form too early, then that can be a worrying thing as well, but I don’t think we have to worry about that particular problem.”
Harte allowed himself a wry smile when he said that, but there wasn’t a lot to smile about in the first half on Saturday. Conditions were awful and both sides set up defensively and cancelled each other out.
Tyrone quickly abandoned the tactic of playing the ball long to full-forward Seán Cavanagh in favour of running into the massed ranks in the Royal defence and managed just three points with the wind at their backs. Time and again they were turned over, but the Red Hands’ defence – with Rory Brennan impressing as sweeper – did the same when Meath came at them.
Eight minutes had gone before exciting young talent Bradley and Connor McAliskey combined to send Seán Cavanagh clear and he clipped the ball over the bar with a trademark left-foot shot. The rain swept in and made the pitch greasy and the ball slippery and nine more scrappy minutes ticked by before Cavanagh doubled his side’s lead after Ronan McNabb’s pass.
Meath, playing into the wind, had dropped five shots short and sent two wide before Mickey Newman skipped past his marker and fired straight at Niall Morgan with the goal at his mercy. At that stage, it looked like the Royals mightn’t score in the opening half, but centre half-back Donncha Tobin joined the attack to finally open their account.
Three more points – one from Graham Reilly and two Newman frees – quickly followed and, though Bradley pulled one back in the closing stages, Tyrone jogged off at the break 0-4 to 0-3 behind with 35 minutes to save their season.
“It was a poor first half from our perspective,” said Harte.
“Our first four or five attacks rendered nothing for us and then we held them out for 28 minutes without scoring, but we were only two-nil up, which was a bit ridiculous given the amount of football we had played.
“For them to go in four-three up was just a bit of a disaster for us and it was asking big questions of these players: ‘can you cope with a difficult situation?’ and it was a difficult situation.”
Harte introduced McCann and Darren McCurry at the break, but the ‘difficult situation’ got worse when Brian McMahon doubled Meath’s lead.
Then Tyrone, desperate for a spark to get them going, won a free and McAliskey stepped up to take it. The Clonoe man had looked off the boil and didn’t strike it well, but the ball just made it over the bar and the score seemed to settle the team and, with Seán Cavanagh now operating at midfield, Peter Harte returned to wing-back and quickly levelled.
Donal Keogan put Meath back in front, but Joe McMahon, who had an excellent game, drove forward and found McCurry who slipped in McCann and he ran and ran until Keogan brought him down as he shaped to shoot. Referee Ciarán Branagan signalled ‘penalty’ and Peter Harte stepped up to take the crucial kick. Tyrone’s season hung on it and Harte did what he needed to do, burying it into the top corner and, suddenly, the Red Hands led by two.
Over the remaining 22 end-to-end minutes, the sides slugged it out. Graham Reilly scored for Meath, but Ronan O’Neill replied for Tyrone. Then, Kevin Reilly fired over from Meath’s left wing and Bradley cancelled it out. McCann put three between them once more, but Graham Reilly dragged the Royals back again before Bradley and McCurry gave Tyrone a four-point cushion.
Bryan Menton grabbed another for Meath and they then had penalty appeals of their own turned down when Joey Wallace was man-handled as he sent a shot wide. The game entered injury-time and, although Kevin Reilly, reduced the gap to two, Tyrone held on for their win.
The final whistle signalled the end of the season for the Royals and, perhaps, the end of the road for manager Mick O’Dowd, although he would like to keep going after three years in charge.
“The clubs in Meath will decide that,” O'Dowd said.
“I personally wouldn’t step away from this group, but there is a lot of discussion and decisions to be made. I wouldn’t like to walk away from it, put it like that. In the past, that instability has hampered Meath’s progress but, as I say, it’s up to the clubs to decide that.”
Meanwhile, Tyrone will look ahead to the third round of the Qualifiers knowing that they found purpose and fighting spirit when it mattered.
“They had to stand up and be counted in the second half and I must say that they did that,” said Harte.
“If you look back over the years, even when you win things you have days that are mediocre and not very good to look at and there’s a very small margin between living through games like that and getting better. But the alternative is you’re not there at all, so you don’t know how good you could have become.
“The years you do well, you know that you stagger your way through certain rounds and, if you take advantage of staggering through enough rounds, then who knows when the switch will go on and we can play with that fluency for a longer period of time?”
Tyrone: N Morgan; A McCrory, R McNamee, C McCarron; R McNabb (0-1), Joe McMahon, R Brennan; P Harte (1-1, 1-0 pen), C Cavanagh; R Donnelly, M Donnelly, B Tierney; M Bradley (0-3, 0-1 free),
S Cavanagh (0-2), C McAliskey (0-1 free); Subs: D McCurry (0-1) for R Donnelly (h-t), T McCann (0-1) for Tierney (h-t), C McKenna for Brennan (42), C McShane for Bradley (70); Black card: McCurry (70) not replaced.
Meath: C McHugh; J McEntee, C McGill, D Tobin (0-1); D Keogan (0-1), D Dalton, P Harnan; B Menton (0-1), H Rooney; G Reilly (0-3), M Newman (0-2 frees), A Tormey; E Wallace, S Bray, B McMahon (0-1); Subs: D Lenihan for Wallace (13), K Reilly (0-2) for Newman (54), S Tobin for Bray (63); Yellow cards: Bray (6), McMahon (36), Torney (44).
Referee: C Branagan (Down).
Attendance: 6,895
