CHASING Sam last year and chasing their tails ever since, Tyrone joint-manager Feargal Logan conceded that “chasing it” was the story of 2022 after his All-Ireland champions were emphatically dethroned by Armagh yesterday.
The hope in the Red Hands camp would have been that an 11-point mauling from Derry and the prospect of crossing swords with their fierce rivals would have brought the best out of this misfiring Tyrone side. But it didn’t happen and Tyrone, missing just two of the team that started the All-Ireland final, could have no complaints with the result.
“You have to hand it to Armagh,” said Logan.
“They played very well, a strong performance. We had a couple of warnings from them towards the start of the year and we couldn’t match it today. We have to congratulate them and look at ourselves and that’s life, that’s football.”
Conor McKenna gave Logan’s men the perfect start with an early goal but that was as good as it got for Tyrone. After Aidan Nugent replied for Armagh they were always chasing the game and, as Logan said, that’s the story of their disappointing title defence.
“We got a good start with the goal and you hope that kicks you on,” he said.
“We didn’t tag on a few points and we struggled to build the lead a bit better and then Armagh hit us for one and we were chasing it and once you are chasing it, it is very hard. That was the story of the day, maybe it was the story of the year?”
Tyrone played 10 games in 2022, won four, lost five and drew the other. Why did they lose form so dramatically? Players leaving the squad? The pressure of being All-Ireland champions? Lack of hunger after last year’s heroics? Logan admitted he didn’t know the answer.
“It’s a very intangible and difficult thing,” he said.
“In terms of focus and hunger and all those things it’s very hard to put your finger on it. We thought we would kick-start some day and we thought today could be the day but it wasn’t.
“That’s our issue to live with now. Dealing with success, it’s not easy and we saw it all year really.
“We will just have to review it and see if there is something we can identify. But boys will go back to their clubs, footballers are resilient and they just get on with it and we will have to regroup at some stage and go back.
“It’s an early summer for everyone in one sense. It is going to make it harder in that sense but it is the first year of that set-up and we will have to deal with it and watch it play out, if it is here to stay.
“But we will do what we always do, there is a right bit of club action in Tyrone that will keep everyone busy for the next few months and we will see where we go to.”
Meanwhile, Armagh were transformed from the side that had looked so disjointed against Donegal in Ballybofey six weeks’ previously. They had an intensity and cutting edge about their play that Tyrone could not match but Logan said: “I thought our boys went at it right and hard out there too.
“There was a fair old pace to it and Tyrone were trying hard, we just came up short on the scoreboard in a sense.
“We were always chasing the game and we have to deal with it now. I hope young (Connaire) Mackin is ok and I know Niall Grimley suffered a bad, bad injury at training too. These things are important and we have to live with them. We lost a football match and that’s it.”
