Moy are almost in bonus territory after exceding expectation nor th of the border

QUITE what sort of challenge An Ghaelatcht can expect from their All-Ireland semi-final against Moy is anyone’s guess, for the simple reason that the Tyrone club is a bit of an unknown quantity. Take away the two household names on the current team, brothers Sean and Colm Cavanagh, and there isn’t much else to distinguish them from the majority of clubs.

Located in east Tyrone, backed right up onto the Armagh border, Moy is a small enough village with a population somewhere between that of Cahersiveen and Kenmare. Despite a short stint in the Tyrone Senior Championship around a decade ago, and with one County SFC title won way back in 1920, Moy are very much an Intermediate club in Tyrone, and not a terribly successful one at that. Their 2017 IFC title was only the club’s second ever at that level, coming 35 years after their first in 1982. They lost county finals in 1998 and 2008.

Former greats include the blond-haired Plunkett Donaghy, who starred against Kerry in the 1986 All-Ireland Final, while more recently Philip Jordan, Colin Holmes and Ryan Mellon were on the Tyrone panel during the 2000s with Jordan and Holmes winning three All-Ireland medals and Mellon two.

Currently managed by Audi Kelly and Gavin McGally, Moy play with a certain likeness to the great Tyrone team of the last decade. Not blessed with brilliant forwards, they tend to play quite a defensive formation, and look to hit the opposition on the counter-attack. The Cavanagh brothers, of course, are key players for them, with Colm nominally named at midfield but quite often dropping into a sweeper role. Sean, meanwhile, usually carries the no.14 jersey but is given licence to roam around, and can be found around midfield, as often as he is stationed at the edge of the square. The older brother is also on free-taking duty for the team.

Harry Loughren is another forward of note, and has been part of Mickey Harte’s Tyrone panel since the start of 2017. Loughren is a lively and dangerous forward, but the sense is that if An Ghaeltacht can curb his influence, and if Sean Cavanagh can be forced deeper and away from goal, then the Kerry club has a great chance of winning. Ryan Coleman and former Tyrone minor Eunan Deeney are a couple of other forwards to keep an eye on, and while there’s a sense that we shouldn’t expect a huge scoring return from the Ulster champions, they have scored nine goals in seven championship matches, and have a scoring average of over 15 points across those games.

It’s their solid defence that Moy are built on, with Thomas McNicholl, Mark Gribben and Thomas Conlon three notable defenders. They’ve only been conceding an average of less than 10 points per game through the Tyrone and Ulster championships so An Ghaeltacht might have to be patient and look for some long-range points if the conditions are favourable.

There wasn’t any great expectation for Moy to do particularly well in the Tyrone championship, and they went into the county final as underdogs against Derrylaughan, but they showed great tenacity and industry to edge a typically tight and tough Tyrone final by a point.

The expectation regarding Moy’s chances of going further in this competition is, according to one Tyrone-based GAA writer, one of “more hope than expectation”. He says that in some respects this Moy team has already overachieved, and while they will travel to Portlaoise as confident as any team that leaves Tyrone, they are very aware of the strong record of Kerry clubs in this championship.

“I don’t think people will be getting carried away. A Kerry team (Glenbeigh/Glencar) beat Rock St Patrick’s in the (All-Ireland) Junior Club final at the start of last year so that is still fresh in the memory but Moy will give a good go, you can be sure of that,”

he said.