TYRONE can prove to be “a dangerous outfit” in the All-Ireland knockout stages, believes former captain Mattie Donnelly – but only if they build momentum by beating Westmeath this weekend.
Avoiding defeat will be enough to see Feargal Logan and Brian Dooher’s men progress, probably to the preliminary quarter-finals, unless Armagh also defeat Galway.
However, Donnelly is keen to start putting wins together. The Red Hands laboured to a much-needed victory over neighbours Armagh in Omagh last time out, but the Trillick man knows there is much improvement required if Tyrone are to be serious challengers for the Sam Maguire Cup this year.
Still, the two-point victory over the Orchard county lifted spirits after a poor run of results by the 2021 All-Ireland SFC champions, acknowledged Donnelly:
“It was bitter-sweet: we were very, very desperate to win. It was our fifth Championship game in a row, we’d no wins in the previous four, so getting a win was the most important thing, and thankfully we got it…
“Winning is the best medicine in the world. It is certainly just good to get back in that winning mindset.
“We’ll take it from there. It is a good place to be when you are reviewing things with things to work on with the win. We are well aware we have to make those refinements. If we can make them and keep building momentum, we’ll be a dangerous outfit too.”
Although Tyrone held Armagh to 11 points, the visitors to Healy Park could have netted three early goals and one late one – even without the red-carded Rian O’Neill for more than half the match.
Donnelly is well aware that the Red Hands need to tighten up at the back, saying: “I thought we looked vulnerable, too vulnerable, especially when they went long with their kick-outs. We just scraped through there. We looked dangerous when we went up the other end.
“When you leave it a ‘score game’ against a team like Armagh, you’re always rolling the dice that you could get a sucker-punch like we did against Monaghan.
“It is something for us to review, but thankfully, we’re reviewing it from a winning perspective.
Having lost at home to Derry last year, then been knocked out by Armagh, Tyrone were pipped again in Ulster this season by that last-gasp goal from Monaghan which Donnelly alluded to.
Defeat away to last year’s beaten All-Ireland finalists Galway followed in their Sam Maguire cup opener, and although Tyrone were down to 13 men for a spell, with goalkeeper Niall Morgan ‘sin-binned’ after an early red card for Frank Burns, a fourth consecutive Championship loss still hurt, admitted Mattie.
“Aye, there was talk about that – we built it up. There’s no point dressing it up: we come from a county where four Championship defeats on the trot is short seasons for you, with knock-out football. We were well aware of that.
“[Against Armagh ] we weren’t really focussed on two points or the repercussions within the group. It was really about winning.”
Donnelly insists that beating Westmeath will be a tough task
Indeed, having seen first-hand how hard Westmeath pushed Armagh in their first-round meeting, before a fortuitous goal helped the hosts to a narrow win in the Athletic Grounds, Donnelly anticipates a tough test in Kingspan Breffni on Sunday afternoon.
“I was at that game in the flesh and it was very obvious that Dessie Dolan, Jason Sherlock and the management team have coached them extremely hard and extremely well since the League campaign.
“If you go into a game against them in the wrong pitch, it is going to be a long, long day. They’ve a sprinkling of good footballers, really good ball-users and they get them on the ball as well.
“You’d be chasing tails a lot if you don’t show up in the right pitch and that game is going to be an extremely tight game. Wherever it is, we’ll have to be in the right frame of mind or we’ll be nipped."
Tyrone in the All-Ireland series can always be a different proposition, though, and Donnelly is looking forward with cautious optimism:
“It is relatively in our own hands now and we can give ourselves a favourable position. Probably top is out of the equation now, but you never know?
“We just have to focus on the next game, treat it as a knockout game as we did today and see where that takes us. There’ll be a lot of twists and turns yet in this competition.”
