Oisín: Ulster too negative

ARMAGH All-Ireland winner and RTÉ analyst Oisín McConville has lamented the quality of the Ulster SFC in recent years and said that whoever wins the heavyweight quarterfinal between Tyrone and Monaghan at Healy Park on Sunday will go on to win the province outright. ‘The last three years in Ulster has been a huge disappointment. The quality of football, people have turned off in their droves,’ he said. ‘For Tyrone, Monaghan is a massive game. ‘Whoever comes out of that will be Ulster champions. They have a nice pathway to the latter stages of the Championship. But whoever loses that has got a dogfight on their hands. ‘A lot of it is fairly negative football and Tyrone are probably now as onedimensional as they have ever been. They still have super players, they still can tear teams apart as they did when walking through Ulster last year. But again Monaghan/ Tyrone is toss of a coin, [I have a] sneaking suspicion Monaghan can turn them over.’ As for his native county, he feels Kieran McGeeney has an important decision to make in terms of the team’s style of play after gaining promotion and squeezing out Fermanagh in the Division 3 final at Croke Park — the same two teams meet on Saturday night at Brewster Park. ‘It’s important that Kieran gets over the line against Fermanagh. Winning that game in Ulster and gaining promotion would be a success as far as people would be concerned. I don’t think he will be under pressure regardless of Ulster because they have gained promotion. And he has a five-year term. They have progressed in the last 12 months.’