Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
NEVER TYR OF WINNING
A BIG performance was coming – Sean Cavanagh could feel it in his bones. And as he tried to take in the significance of giving Donegal their biggest beating since the 2013 All-ireland quarter-final by Mayo, Cavanagh insisted his belief in this emerging team never faltered. “We feel we’ve been on this journey for three or
four years and rebuilding and refining the system as we’ve gone along,” said the Tyrone skipper. “We haven’t always received kind plaudits for it, but we always believed that we had the quality to play football that could do damage. “I feel we’ve been waiting and waiting for that performance to come together and it’s nice whenever it comes together like that. “We’re there, we’re where we want to be. We probably felt we had a point to prove today and we did that.” It will be hard for Tyrone to replicate the same dazzling display in the Ulster final. “We’ve been starved of Ulster finals, last year was the first in six years, so it won’t be hard to get the boys up for it again. “Last year was very important for us, and this would equally mean a lot. “It’s another rung in the latter but nothing’s won yet. We are ticking along nicely and hopefully we our bringing our best form into the summer.” The game was expected to be as tight as last year’s Ulster final, but Mickey Harte felt his team was about to click. “I am the eternal optimist anyway and I have been seeing that coming for this last year and a half,” said Harte. “Of course conditions were fine for us and we do like the dry sod and hot days in Clones. “A lot of things that people are saying are not in our game anymore were there – lots of fast break play and lots of play in open space. “Of course there were defensive set-ups too and times when it was very clustered, but I think it had a bit of everything. A bit of the old, a bit of the new and what might be to come.”
QUALIFIERS: Donegal will learn their fate at 8.35am this morning as they will face either Laois, Sligo, Longford or Derry in round 2A