DERMOT CARLIN knows just how difficult it is to carve out a result at Celtic Park.
During a Tyrone career spanning 13 years, Carlin never managed a win at a ground where Derry have always had the measure of their neighbours from over the Sperrins. And he expects the Oak Leafers to offer mighty resistance once again in Sunday’s Ulster Championship opener.
“We never did win at Celtic Park. It was mostly league games we played up there and it was always a tough place to go,” he said.
“When Derry are in there, they seem to grow a wee bit more and they have a lot of confidence up there. It’s a tough ask for Tyrone to go up there in the first round.”
Carlin, who retired from inter-county football last year, has experienced the Celtic Park atmosphere both as a player and a supporter. He’s in no doubt Derry will be empowered by a vociferous home crowd and called on Tyrone fans to turn up the volume and make themselves heard in the cauldron.
“It’s great to watch a match up there, actually. I watched the U21 final up there last year and the noise is great, a nice wee ground with the crowd on top of you,” he said.
“It will definitely help the Derry boys and they’ll be up for it, playing on their own pitch and they’ll be ready for Tyrone and ready for everything that’s fired at them. People mightn’t realise how important it is but, when you get the crowd behind you as a player, it gives you that extra wee lift. You can actually go for that ball a wee bit quicker and a wee bit harder, believe it or not, if you have the crowd behind you and the support and the noise coming to cheer you on. It’s definitely a big, big help.”
The double All-Ireland winning defender warned Derry are primed to spring an ambush. Having lost all four of the previous meetings of the sides this season, they are managing modest expectations against a Tyrone side strongly tipped to challenge for the All-Ireland this year.
“Earlier on in the year, they didn’t have their big guns out playing. They’ll have the likes of Mark Lynch out and it will be a different team than what Tyrone faced earlier in the year.”
Carlin’s Killyclogher team-mate Eoghan Bradley, also a former Tyrone player, is Derry’s strength and conditioning coach, but no classified information has been forthcoming from the man who is putting the Oak Leafers through their paces on the Owenbeg training ground.
“Eoghan Bradley, our own clubman, is with them and you don’t get much talk out of him. If you ask him anything, he smiles and says nothing,” said Carlin.
For all the potential perils and pitfalls that await the Red Hands, Carlin believes that, if they can get their running game going, they will be hard to stop this weekend: “If Tyrone get opened up, get running strong, they’re a very hard team to stop,” he said.
