Ulster Senior Football Championship first round: Tyrone 1-18 Cavan 0-13
IT’LL take more than a handsome Ulster Championship victory over Cavan to completely banish the memory of those six goals in Killarney last month – but the Red Hands put their best foot forward in Omagh on Saturday afternoon and are up and running.
The 2021 provincial series followed a familiar path as previous weeks. The gutsy losers gave it everything in the opening 35 minutes before blowing a gasket in the second half, and the stress-free winners - who lost Ronan McNamee to a 56th minute red card - breezed over the finish line.
Without setting the world alight, Feargal Logan and Brian Dooher will be happy with their day’s work.
With Conor McKenna missing through injury, Darren McCurry hit double figures in the Tyrone attack, Cathal McShane made a triumphant return after 17 months of pure misery, Brian Kennedy and Conn Kilpatrick shaped up well in midfield, they had a bouncing fit Padraig Hampsey while Conor Meyler, Richie Donnelly and Peter Harte were moving well.
But the day belonged to Edendork’s finest – Darren ‘Dazzler’ McCurry who bagged a brilliant 0-10 in Tyrone’s comfortable eight-point victory.
Players like McCurry soothe the soul.
He is one of the few remaining inter-county forwards left in the game that can produce moments of pure magic that you won’t find in Gaelic football’s modern-day coaching manual.
McCurry doesn’t play the percentages. He backs himself.
Playing the percentages and being conditioned to recycle absolutely every ball that comes in is the job of the cloned, colour-less forward that has ransacked the game of its spontaneity and individualism. These types leave no trace of themselves.
McCurry is built differently.
On Saturday afternoon, the 2,000 or so spectators at Healy Park reached for their sepia-tinged glasses and were propelled back to the glorious ‘Noughties’, when swaggering corner-forwards won games by themselves with humongous tallies and smiled for the cameras afterwards.
Over the last decade or more the inside forward’s terrain has become football’s equivalent of the Serengeti: sparse and arid – but for 30 minutes on Saturday afternoon we were treated to a joyous one-on-one duel.
In Cavan’s naivety, they let it happen: ‘Dazzler’ versus rookie corner-back Cian Reilly.
The first half started with a converted ‘mark’ from the Edendork ace and ended with five more scores from the same man.
His 17th minute score – his third of the day and first from play – was sublime. After winning Peter Harte’s pass at an awkward height out on the left flank, McCurry brushed aside Reilly and fired over from a difficult angle.
In the 23rd minute, Richie Donnelly’s telepathic pass and McCurry’s movement and subsequent score was the best feature of Tyrone’s football. Harte and Kilpatrick also fed him for other scores before the break.
McCurry was uncoachable gold on Saturday.
He’s had some difficult moments in high-profile Championship games for Tyrone over the last few years that might have shrunk a player’s confidence but equally there have been umpteen other days where he’s proven his worth to his county. Saturday was another one of those nerveless days.
Nevertheless, when Cavan would have looked at Tyrone’s forward line before the game – even with Mattie Donnelly being pushed from midfield into the attack – McCurry, on paper, was the heaviest scorer that they needed to mind.
By the time they realised, with Reilly substituted after 30 minutes, it was too late.
At the other end, Cavan were giving as good as they got. They pressed high on Niall Morgan’s kick-outs and got some joy.
Tyrone also didn’t get a key match-up right. Michael O’Neill of Ardboe, who has done really well this year, never looked like the right fit for the crafty Gearoid McKiernan.
Cavan did well to usher the ball to their gifted centre-forward, especially in the 25th minute when Oisin Kiernan, Conor Moynagh and Padraig Faulkner moved the ball through the hands at lightning pace before giving it to the best shooter in their team to grab his fourth of the day.
Indeed, it was nip and tuck right up to the 29th minute when Niall Sludden peeled off the flank to put two between the sides for the first time.
It was around that period Mickey Graham’s men began to wilt a little. Between the 25th and 40th minutes, Tyrone rattled off 1-6 without reply that put the home side into an unassailable lead, 1-12 to 0-7.
The towering Brian Kennedy, who entered for the bloodied Richie Donnelly in first-half stoppage-time, made a real difference upon his arrival.
The Derrylaughan midfielder offered penetration down the centre of the pitch and managed to finish off a move that he started to raise a green flag from close range in the 40th minute, having lent the ball to McCurry and Mattie Donnelly.
Although Tyrone would go down to 14 men on 56 minutes after Ronan McNamee twice pushed Conor Brady with an open hand to the face, Logan and Dooher didn’t need to panic with a seven-point advantage heading into the last quarter.
Cavan's second-half substitute Conor Smith shot on sight and grabbed a couple of consolation scores while Tyrone had managed to tie up McKiernan after he’d caused so much damage in the first period.
But once again in this year’s Ulster Championship there was a distinct lack of drama in the second half. Cavan didn’t appear to have the lung power to maintain their high standards of the first half and never looked like threatening an upset.
The only time the Tyrone supporters were stirred was when force of nature Cathal McShane entered for the subdued Paul Donaghy in the 48th minute, and with his first touch the Owen Roe’s man sent over a lovely point before adding a further two before the final whistle.
As for Cavan, they’ve experienced the tremendous highs of provincial glory just eight months ago and the unfathomable lows of dropping into Division Four only a few weeks ago.
Teams like Cavan sorely needed a back door to rehabilitate themselves and get ready for 2022.
The Breffni men have much to ponder for the rest of the year. Is there another campaign in the totemic Gearoid McKiernan?
With a hard-earned Anglo-Celt medal in his back pocket, what is there left for the recently married McKiernan to achieve at inter-county level?
And was that the last we saw of veteran forward Marty Reilly, a paragon of consistency for over a decade in blue?
In any case, one thing manager Mickey Graham doesn’t mind are mountains. He’s climbed a few already in his managerial career and he mightn’t want to leave his native county at the foot of another one.
On a warm Saturday afternoon Tyrone, somewhat inevitably, advanced to the semi-finals.
There wasn’t a great deal of turbulence for new managers Feargal Logan and Brian Dooher to contend with.
Both men can breathe out. They’re up and running…
Tyrone: N Morgan; M McKernan, R McNamee, P Hampsey; R Brennan, M O’Neill, P Harte (0-2); M Donnelly, C Kilpatrick; K McGeary, R Donnelly, C Meyler; D McCurry (0-10, 0-4 frees, 0-1 mark), P Donaghy (0-1), N Sludden (0-2) Subs: T McCann for K McGeary (h/t), C McShane (0-3, 0-1 free) for P Donaghy (48), F Burns for N Sludden (61), M Bradley for R Brennan (69), B McDonnell for M McKernan (72)
Blood substitutions: M Bradley for D McCurry (4-5), J Kennedy (1-0) for R Donnelly (35+2 permanent replacement)
Yellow cards: K McGeary (9), N Sludden (17)
Red card: R McNamee (56)
Cavan: R Galligan (0-1 free); K Clarke, P Faulkner, C Reilly; B O’Connell, K Brady, J McLoughlin; T Galligan (0-1), C Moynagh; G Smith (0-1), G McKiernan (0-6, 0-4 frees), O Kiernan; O Pierson (0-1), O Brady, M Reilly Subs: L Fortune for C Reilly (30), C Madden (0-1) for C Moynagh (h/t), C Smith (0-2) for O Brady (h/t), C Brady for M Reilly (47), C Conroy for O Pierson (56)
Blood substitutions: C Conroy for T Galligan (21-23), N Murray for K Brady (63 – permanent replacement)
Yellow card: O Kiernan (31)
Referee: D Gough (Meath)
