Football

Tyrone minors blitz Cork to set up All-Ireland final showdown with Meath at Croke Park

Tyrone&rsquo;s Ruairi McHugh celebrates after the Electric Ireland GAA All-Ireland Minor Football Championship semi-final win over Cork at Bord na Mona O'Connor Park, Tullamore<br /><br />Picture: INPHO/James Crombie
Tyrone’s Ruairi McHugh celebrates after the Electric Ireland GAA All-Ireland Minor Football Championship semi-final win over Cork at Bord na Mona O'Connor Park, Tullamore

Picture: INPHO/James Crombie
Tyrone’s Ruairi McHugh celebrates after the Electric Ireland GAA All-Ireland Minor Football Championship semi-final win over Cork at Bord na Mona O'Connor Park, Tullamore

Picture: INPHO/James Crombie

Electric Ireland All-Ireland Minor Football Championship semi-final: Tyrone 0-23 Cork 1-6

WITH a superb display of skilful, fluent football that will have done Tyrone hearts good, the young Red Hands swept Munster champions Cork aside with a quite brilliant team performance at O’Connor Park.

It would be very easy to get carried away with Gerard Donnelly’s team after they progressed to the All-Ireland final with a very fine afternoon’s work in Tullamore. They haven’t won anything yet, but if they muster the same again at Croke Park next Saturday (in the curtainraiser to the Tyrone-Kerry All-Ireland semi-final) Meath will find them very hard to stop.

From the start, Tyrone attacked with pace, skill and variety - kicking the ball sometimes, running and handpassing at others. They dominated midfield, their tackling was excellent, their workrate superb and they nailed 23 points through eight scorers and won by 14 despite missing five goal chances including a penalty.

Afterwards a shell-shocked Cork fan described the Ulster champions’ performance as “savage”. Tyrone manager Donnelly admitted his team’s display had been “dream stuff”.

“You always hope (they’ll perform like that) but there’s always that niggly doubt,” said the delighted Stewartstown clubman.

“We watched Cork and they beat Kerry which is always a good barometer of what a team is like. I watched them over and over and you think: ‘If Hugh O’Connor clicks or one of their other boys clicks…’ You always worry and that’s why it’s dream stuff to win like we did but there’s nothing won yet and we know the challenge ahead of us next week.”

Donnelly’s delight was underpinned by notes of caution. He is well aware that Saturday’s performance will count for very little if Tyrone don’t reproduce it next weekend against a Meath side that beat Sligo 2-14 to 2-9 in Saturday’s first semi-final.

“You have to hope there’s better to come,” he said.

“These lads are very grounded and they know that won’t do next week. From the start of this year if you had asked: ‘Who is the team you’re looking at?’ I would probably have said Meath.

“We played Dublin in a challenge match and I asked the Dublin manager about the Leinster championship and he said Meath would be tough to beat. Dublin ended up beating us in that challenge and you saw what Meath did to them in the Leinster final (won 3-8 to 1-3). It’s back to the drawing board now.”

Donnelly has a backroom team packed with former All-Ireland finalists and the experience of the likes of Conor Gormley, Ciaran Gourley and Eamonn McGarrity will be invaluable as Tyrone set their minds to winning the county’s ninth minor title and first since 2010.

“Tyrone were excellent, fair play to them and best of luck to them in the All-Ireland final,” said Cork manager Michael O’Brien.

“We just didn't perform on the day and that's unfortunate but the performance wasn't up to what we'd been doing in training. That can happen. I've been in dressing-rooms like that and it's a hard dressing-room to be in but at the same time they should be very proud of what they've achieved throughout the year.

“We had a great performance against Waterford, then Kerry and in patches against Limerick. We were hoping today to put a patch together that was good enough to put Tyrone under pressure but unfortunately it never came.”

O’Brien’s men were under pressure right from the throw-in as Tyrone immediately set about them. Ardboe playmaker Cormac Devlin was in the thick of it and the first two scores – an Eoin McElholm point and a Hugh Cunningham free – stemmed from his hard work.

Cork pulled one back through Hugh O’Connor (their only scorer in the first half, Tyrone had six) but the Red Hands were dominating midfield against the wind and continued to dictate the game.

Despite the greasy surface and the massed defence, the nippy Tyrone forwards took on their markers at every opportunity and three more points followed before Cork scored again.

McElholm replied with his second before Gavin Potter was dragged down in the Cork square and referee Barry Tiernan signalled one of the more cast-iron penalties of his career.

Shea O’Hare stepped up to take it but Cork goalkeeper Daniel Walsh, who had earlier denied Potter and Cassidy with excellent saves, dived full-length to his left and kept it out.

Their goalkeeper’s heroics briefly roused the Rebels and O’Connor managed his third score of the half, but Tyrone regained control.

Moments of flair like Callan Kelly’s brilliant catch and Devlin’s one-handed fetch delighted the crowd and points from Ruairi McHugh, Cunningham, Ronan Strain and Cassidy extended the lead to 10-3 at the break which was the least Tyrone deserved.

Any chance Cork had of turning the game around depended on them hitting back hard in the third quarter and the Tyrone youngsters seemed well aware of that as they began the second half with a touch of caution.

O’Connor, who was well marshalled by Michael Rafferty, scored the opener to reduce the gap to six but then substitute Conor Owens swung over the first of four points off his left boot and he’d added his second before Cork sub Dylan Crowley, benefiting from the industry of Rory O’Shaughnessy in midfield, nipped in to score the Rebels’ fifth.

But there was no way back for them and Tyrone scored the next eight points on the spin with the pick of the bunch arguably McElhom’s fine finish after a flowing length-of-the-field passing move.

Loughmacrory forward McElhom finished with five points and would have been a worthy man of the match but TG4 gave that award to the Cork ’keeper (amazingly a late replacement) who made two more outstanding saves - denying Cassidy on both occasions.

Despite his one-man show, Tyrone cantered to the finish with Jack Martin tapping over three sumptuous points before the end.

Cork: D Walsh; D Twomey, S O’Connell, P O’Grady; S Copps, C Twomey, D O’Brien; M McSweeney, R O’Shaughnessy; J O’Neill, N Kelly, C Gillespie; L O’Herlihy, J O’Connor (0-4, 0-3 frees)

Subs: F Crowley for McSweeney (HT), J Cunningham for Kelly (HT), O Corcoran for O’Herlihy (40), D Crowley (0-1) for Gillespie (40), A Kelleher (1-1) for O’Brien (46)

Tyrone: N Robinson; M Rafferty, R Fox, C Kelly; H Cunningham (0-2) frees), S O’Hare, M Mallon; R Donnelly, R McHugh (0-1); R Strain (0-2), C Devlin (0-1), G Potter; R Cassidy (0-5, 0-3 frees), P McCann, E McElholm (0-5)

Subs: C Owens (0-4, 0-3 frees) for McCann (HT), N Grimes for Potter (52), B Hampsey for Fox (54), B Hughes for O’Hare (56), J Martin (0-3) for Strain (57)

Referee: B Tiernan (Dublin)