Tyrone SFC preliminary round: Dromore 0-12 Ardboe 0-10
DROMORE manager Colm McCullagh predicted another Tyrone championship campaign of close contests after his club just about prevailed in a fiercely fought encounter with Ardboe.
The St Dympna’s ‘reward’ after coming through this preliminary round battle is to face the reigning champions, Dungannon Clarke’s, but McCullagh knows never to expect anything easy in the Red Hand county Championship:
“It’s winter football now, it’s typical Tyrone championship football, it’s going to go to the wire every game. We saw that last year and it’s going to be the same this year. The top 12 teams really there’s nothing in it.
“On any given day there’s very little in it, Dungannon proved that point last year, they came out of the smoke and won a Championship. They’re next on the list for us and no tougher battle than the county champions.”
McCullagh was delighted with the spirit his side showed after going down to 14 men shortly before the second water break when corner-forward Emmett McNabb was controversially black-carded.
Dromore were furious with that decision, but victory diluted their anger and McCullagh said:
“I can’t comment too much on it. I don’t know why Emmett would be wrestling with Shay McGuigan when we’re in possession of the ball but the linesman is adamant that when Emmett played the ball he pulled Shay to the ground. I didn’t see that…
“We showed character in the last 10 minutes. They brought it back level, there was never really any gap in the game, so we had to dig a deep and find a way. We did - our half-back Colm O’Neill came up and kicked two points.”
Ardboe boss Mickey Donnelly accepted that Dromore were the slightly better side overall but pointed out that injuries had affected his side’s chances.
Michael O’Neill, an All-Ireland winner with Tyrone this year, went off early in the second period with an ankle injury and Donnelly commented:
“Losing Michael was obviously a huge loss; you saw the value Michael had for Tyrone over the course of the year, so to lose him at club level is huge. He clogs up gaps, he leads - when we had the black card advantage and we got level, Michael would have taken us on, he probably would have driven us over the line. That was a huge blow to us. He’s a huge leader to this group.”
Two other county men, past and present, namely Kyle Coney and Michael Cassidy, were also only deemed fit enough to come off the bench, with Donnelly explaining even that was a gamble:
“Kyle has an ongoing ankle problem, he hasn’t been able to do any training in four weeks, and Michael hurt his quad about a fortnight ago against Dromore in the league and hasn’t trained since.
“Throwing them on at any stage was a roll of the dice. Starting them then having to take them off would have been an awful blow to the group so the calculated risk was to bring them on. Kyle got a score but ‘Cass’ didn’t look himself, although we were glad to have him.”
Apart from CJ McGourty, the Ardboe attack never really functioned, although Donnelly gave praised to Dromore in that regard: “When you’re looking for that bit of top end quality I don’t think we had enough ‘go forward’ ball. We were getting scores off scraps, or frees - and that’s a credit to their defence. They’re well-organised and are going to be huge challenge now for anyone to beat.”
Even the county champions.
