Time will tell if Red Hands are real deal
I SIMPLY did not see that coming in Clones last Sunday.
Trusting League football can make a mug out of you at the best of times, but I always place my faith in how teams are faring during the latter stages of the spring.
That comes from my own experience because if you are not going well as the ground hardens in the last few games of the League then, especially when it comes to Munster football, you were likely to spend four sleepless months wondering where you would really be come the real business in August.
I thought Tyrone were poor in their last three League games to the point that they were bordering on wretched when they came to Killarney for their final match.
On the flip side, Rory Gallagher’s side seemed light of foot and spirit at the tail end of the spring, so I evaluated them in a far more favourable light.
After last Sunday, I feel like lying down, but truly I don’t believe that Tyrone are as good as they looked or, for that matter, that Donegal are as bad.
But they are on different roads and given that Tyrone were so close to us in 2015, they will make for very dangerous opponents when they will almost certainly pair off against Dublin in the semi-final this August.
Their organisation, movement and aerial power around the middle will ask serious questions of the champions, but it should also be noted that it will be only then before we can get a measure of where they are truly at.
For now, they have pushed themselves back into the frame as front-line contenders.