HAVING spent last Saturday evening enjoying a few pints in the company of a Tyrone man, I can safely say there is a growing sense of expectation in the O’Neill county ahead of Sunday’s All-Ireland semi-final against Kerry.
The rather shaky grounds for optimism may well be based along the lines of “sure we always beat them at Croke Park” but there is no getting way from the fact that the belief is back amongst the Red Hand faithful.
There is also no getting away from the fact that Mickey Harte’s men are huge underdogs against the Kingdom, who were rampant in their quarter-final, playing with all of their infamous swagger as they put seven goals past a hapless Kildare outfit.
That win seriously impressed plenty of bookies, who subsequently cut the reigning All-Ireland champions to 6/4 to retain the Sam Maguire.
At present they are joint-favourites with Dublin in many places, with Mayo a biggest price of 7/2 (Stan James) and Tyrone seen as 14/1 rags with Boylesports.
The layers don’t share the same optimistic feeling as Tyrone’s fans, but they aren’t anywhere near as bad as those odds would suggest, and they could give Kerry their fill of it on Sunday.
It might seem ridiculous to suggest that any team could come into an All-Ireland semi-final a little
under-cooked but that might just be the case with Kerry, who have had only four matches all summer, two of them strolls in the park against Tipperary and Kildare.
Yes, Cork did test them in the Munster final, taking them to a replay, but one look at what happened to the Rebels at the hands of Kildare next time out quickly undermines the value of that test.
Certainly Kerry deserve to be favourites for Sunday’s clash, and they were devastating at times against Kildare, but are they really virtual certainties at 3/10, as Bet365 would have you think?
Tyrone can be backed at 7/2 with Boylesports to win in 70 minutes, and there will be plenty of people in red and white shirts availing of that around Croke Park on Sunday on the back of an impressive run through the Qualifiers.
The preliminary round defeat in Ulster by Donegal may actually have been a blessing in disguise, as it allowed Harte and his backroom team to look at a few younger players away from the Ulster pressure cooker while still picking up results.
And while the current Tyrone team aren’t of the calibre of the sides that beat Kerry in 2003, ’05 and ’08, they are a coming force which nicely blends the experience of the Cavanagh brothers and Peter Harte (left) with the youth of Darren McCurry, Connor McAliskey and Mark Bradley.
They have got better with every passing game this term, and the fall-out from the Monaghan victory should not disguise how impressive they were in patches against a very experienced and talented team.
I definitely feel they can get at a Kerry defence which still contains Marc O Se and Aidan O’Mahony, who are in their mid-30s, and conceded six goals in their first three Championship games.
Tyrone have been racking up big scores without hitting the net in their last three games, but I think they can net at least one
three-pointer, so the Ladbrokes quote of 11/8 about both teams finding the net is very appealing, while the 11/1 offered by Paddy Power about Peter Harte getting the first goal is worth a look.
The Red Hands can run Kerry pretty close, and while I feel they might come up just short of a first
All-Ireland appearance in seven years, they are a fine bet with a four-point start at 21/20 with Boylesports, who are clearly keen to take the Red Hands on and could well pay the price given the unwavering faith of the Tyrone supporters.
