Done & dusted
Tyrone 1-12 Donegal 1-16
DONEGAL ended Tyrone’s bid for a seven-in-a-row of Mckenna Cups in an open, entertaining decider in the Athletic Grounds last night.
Daire O Baoill struck the first point after 30 seconds and on two occasions early on, Tyrone drew level through Conall Mccann and Kieran Mcgeary.
Harry Loughran’s sidefoot finish then put Tyrone in front for the only time, at 1-2 to 0-4, after seven minutes.
Ciaran Thompson’s quick ball into Martin Mcelhinney resulted in a Donegal goal after 10 minutes to make it 1-4 to 1-2.
They stretched the lead to five, through Odhran Macniallais, Marty Reilly (free) and Paul Brennan, but Tyrone stayed in touch and Cathal Mccarron’s lovely left-footed point reduced the deficit to 1-9 to 1-6 at the break.
Tyrone outscored Donegal by four points to one in the 10 minutes after the restart, Ronan O’neill with three of them.
Yet Donegal responded and Niall O’donnell kicked 0-3 from play as the game came back to life.
Michael Murphy came on for the last half an hour and almost immediately scored his first point of 2018.
Paul Brennan and Murphy then added late points to secure the first title of Declan Bonner’s reign.
C Mccarron (0-1), K Mcgeary (0-1); D Mcclure (0-1), H Loughran (1-1), C Mccann (0-1); D Mccurry (0-1), R O’neill (0-6, 5f)
F Mcglynn (0-1); P Brennan (0-2), D O Baoill (0-2); O Macniallais (0-1), C Thompson (0-1), M Mcelhinney (1-1), M Reilly (0-2, 1f), N O’donnell (0-3) M Murphy (0-3, 2f)