Brian Dooher doesn’t believe that Tyrone have a discipline problem.
Red and black cards hampered their bid for an All-Ireland round robin win at Salthill, but the Red Hand joint manager is not concerned that there’s an ongoing issue.
Frank Burns saw red midway through the first half, and a black for goalkeeper Niall Morgan left them facing Galway with just 13 men.
As they prepare to face Armagh this weekend, Dooher expects the dynamic of a much anticipated Ulster derby to be all about the football.
“Our discipline has been fairly good this year, to be honest. I think if you look at our stats, they’re not bad,” he said.
“Frank had a mis-timed tackle, he put his hands up for it and was punished for it, and Niall did something he shouldn’t have done.
“We just need to make sure we do the same again. It was disappointing the last day, but our discipline is not something that’s concerning me.”
Tyrone scored a 0-18 to 0-16 win over the Orchard in the League back in March, relegating their neighbours to Division Two.
But Dooher warned that Kieran McGeeney’s men will be a much tougher proposition when they return to Omagh on Saturday evening looking for a second win in the All-Ireland series, with Tyrone yet to get off the mark.
“I think they’ll be a different team than the team we played in the League, to be honest, if we look at their performance in the Ulster final.
“They hadn’t their full team out against us in the League.
“We’re going to have to be on top of our game to compete with them, but we’ll look forward to it. It’s going to be another step up.”
Armagh’s last two Championship defeats unfolded the heart-breaking drama of penalty shoot-outs – in last year’s All-Ireland quarter-final against Galway and more recently in this season’s Ulster final, when Derry emerged victorious in front of an enthralled full house at Clones.
“Let’s be honest about it, they could have been Ulster champions just as handy,” Dooher said.
“Up until the last couple of minutes you would have thought they had the game, but Derry had a great comeback to score the last couple of points to take it to penalties.
“That’s where Armagh are. They’re a very good team when they have their full team out.
“You look at Armagh last year, where they were. They weren’t far off reaching an All-Ireland final, when Galway pipped them.
“So they’re in that top bracket of counties.”
Tyrone are looking to end a sequence of four Championship defeats since their last win, but Dooher and joint boss Feargal Logan are focused on the positives that were evident in the three points defeat to Galway.
“I hadn’t even though about that, but we can do nothing about the past, we can only look forward.
“There were positives all-right, but the long and the short of it is that we didn’t win.
“We could make excuses, but it is what it is. We hope to be better.
“We’ll take the learning from it surely, but it’s not ideal. You would like to be winning more matches, and we’ll just look forward to the next one. That’s the only one we can talk about, and there’s no point in dwelling on the past, apart from taking the learning from it.
“But I think we are steadily improving.”
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