Sport

Tyrone are moving up the gears at exactly the right time

Tyrone's Colm Cavanagh leaves Sligo's Brian Curran and Stephen Gilmartin trailing in his wake during Saturday's All-Ireland Qualifier clash at Croke Park<br />Picture: Philip Walsh&nbsp;
Tyrone's Colm Cavanagh leaves Sligo's Brian Curran and Stephen Gilmartin trailing in his wake during Saturday's All-Ireland Qualifier clash at Croke Park
Picture: Philip Walsh 
Tyrone's Colm Cavanagh leaves Sligo's Brian Curran and Stephen Gilmartin trailing in his wake during Saturday's All-Ireland Qualifier clash at Croke Park
Picture: Philip Walsh 

All-Ireland Senior Football Championship Qualifying round 4B: 


Tyrone 0-21 Sligo 0-14

IF THIS developing Tyrone team needed an injection of confidence, then Saturday’s routine victory over Sligo was the perfect tonic. The Red Hands will meet Monaghan in this weekend’s All-Ireland quarter-final and Mickey Harte’s men will enter that contest with a spring in their step. 

Admittedly, Tyrone were far from perfect against Sligo, but it was hard not to form the impression that they were never forced into top gear. More importantly again, this result marked Tyrone’s fourth victory on the trot and those wins over Limerick, Meath, Tipperary and Sligo will have galvanised a changing room that has been burdened by the achievements of the past.

This was a straightforward victory for the O’Neill county. Once they secured a four-point cushion in the 12th minute, there was never any danger the northerners would suffer a repeat of the horror show which occurred against the same opposition in 2002. 

Defensively, Tyrone were relatively sound. In the absence of Cathal McCarron, who was attending his brother’s wedding in Wexford, Ronan McNabb was given a man-marking job. McNabb and Ronan McNamee picked up Sligo’s danger men, the inside duo of David Kelly and Pat Hughes. Aidan McCrory tracked Adrian Marren, who was deployed in a deeper role. For extra cover, Joe McMahon and Colm Cavanagh played as two sweepers from start to finish. When the Ulster side didn’t have the ball, they pulled 14 men inside their own half of the field. 

Given the volume of men Tyrone utilised in their defence, manager Mickey Harte is bound to be slightly concerned with the number of times Sligo were able to engineer good scoring chances. Apart from racking up a healthy total of 0-14, the Yeats men also dropped six efforts short. 

While Sligo landed some fine scores, they were no match for a Tyrone side that was always in control of the scoreboard. Tyrone’s attacking display easily eclipsed their defensive performance. Eight Tyrone players chalked up 0-15 from play and the undoubted star of the show was Darren McCurry. By the 10th minute, the Edendork clubman had 0-4 to his name. Unerring from frees and deadly accurate from play, McCurry finished the afternoon with a tally of 0-8. 

Beaten by a whopping 26 points in the Connacht final, Sligo gave a decent account of themselves. While manager Niall Carew believed his players had earned a redemption of sorts, he admitted his Division Three side was still caught off guard by the speed and power of Tyrone’s running game. 

“They are used to playing at that pace and, in the first 15 or 20 minutes, our lads struggled, especially with runners coming off the shoulder. You won’t get that in Division Three,” said Carew. 

To beat an established county like Tyrone, Carew argued Sligo needed everything to go exactly to plan, and that there was no room for the abundant errors which his players made. 

“Any manager will tell you that, when you are playing Tyrone, you have to kill the ball. We had about 12 [shots] short and I’d say they got six turnovers and six scores from that," he added.

“That kills any momentum you have. We got maybe three scores in-a-row and then we dropped three short and they got two points from them. When they turn the ball over, they come at great angles. That’s their game and they are very good at it. We are not at that level, whether we like it or not.” 

While Carew heaped praise on Tyrone’s efficiency, Mickey Harte wasn’t just as impressed. If Tyrone are to progress beyond the last eight, he believes a marked improvement is required. 

“I would hope there is more to come because that won’t be enough to win any serious stuff. We need to get better. We are doing some things very well and other things not quite as good as that. Some of our decision-making is just off at vital moments,” said Harte. 

Although his team kicked an impressive 0-21, Harte couldn’t overlook two clear-cut goal chances that were missed towards the end of the game. Sligo defender Ross Donavan made two brilliant interventions, smothering a shot by Conal McCann before making a goal line clearance from Pádraig McNulty.

“We probably need to be more clinical in our finishing and people will notice that we didn’t get the goals today that we ought to have got. We certainly had two gilt-edged chances and didn’t take them. Goals are very important at this stage of the campaign,” said Harte.

This Saturday’s last-eight battle against Monaghan marks the 10th time Harte has guided his county into the All-Ireland quarter-finals. Given his track record and vast experience at senior county level, the Tyrone boss knows the ingredients of a winning team.

Does Harte have the recipe for Sam? When asked to comment on Tyrone’s evolution since last season, the three-time All-Ireland winning manager pointed to the infusion of youth.

“Over the last couple of years, we had people who were getting towards the end of their careers and still very good footballers. You needed their experience, but you also felt they didn’t have 70 minutes of hard running in them," he added.

“Maybe that has filtered out a bit and we are at the end of that spectrum with younger and fresher men coming in and, at the same time, we still have a degree of experience there. So maybe we have a greater capacity to play a high intensity game for a longer period because of the personnel now.” 

And Harte indicated he wasn’t overly worried about the seven day gap that lies before Tyrone's next outing against the Ulster champions.

“I don’t think I would be too concerned about that,” he said.

“The players have had a measured season. They are coming together at the right time. They don’t look tired, they don’t feel tired. There is a good freshness about them at this time of the year.” 

Asked if he could sense that his players were growing in confidence, Harte replied: “Victories always help because, since we were beaten by Donegal in Ballybofey, we have been in the last-chance saloon. We have come through four of them now and that is always good because these are games you must win and those games are fraught with danger.

“We have managed that, but now we have to be better over a longer period of time. We are playing very good football at times, but there are times it is a bit frustrating where we just make bad choices and unforced errors. We have to try to iron out as many of those as we can.”

MATCH STATS


Tyrone: N Morgan (0-1 free); A McCrory, R McNamee, R Brennan (0-1); R McNabb, Joe McMahon, P Harte (0-1); C Cavanagh (0-1), M Donnelly (0-3); T McCann, M Bradley (0-2), C Meyler; D McCurry (0-8, 0-4 frees, 0-1 45), S Cavanagh (0-3), C McAliskey (0-1); Subs: C McCann for C Meyler (49); Justin McMahon for Joe McMahon (60); D McBride for C Cavanagh (62); R O’Neill for C McAliskey (62); C Clarke for M Donnelly (68). 


Sligo: A Devaney; R Donavan, S Gilmartin, D Maye; K Cawley, B Egan, E Flanagan; C Breheny (0-1), N Murphy (0-1); B Curran, M Breheny (0-6, 0-3 frees), N Ewing; D Kelly (0-1), P Hughes (0-3), A Marren (0-2, 0-2 frees); Subs: K McDonnell for C Breheny (34); J Hynes for S Gilmartin (56); C Davey for N Ewing (58); L Bree for D Maye (63); K Sweeney for P Hughes (69); Yellow cards: N Ewing (3); D Maye (16); B Egan (50). 


Referee: R Hickey (Clare)


Attendance: 25,665