TYRONE’S NEW ERA
Reign of Dooher and Logan is off to a losing start as Donegal edge thriller
IF Brian Dooher and Feargal Logan are seeking some comfort after this from the history books, they won’t have to thumb too many pages back to find it.
The last time Tyrone played a competitive game under a new manager they lost to Roscommon in the opening round of the 2003 League but it hardly derailed Mickey Harte’s ground-breaking journey.
Nor will this unduly bother Dooher and Logan, although what might nag is that this extends their losing streak to their fiercest Ulster rivals to four games – the kind of sequence designed to spook given that they are set for a provincial semi-final meeting with Declan Bonner’s side later in the summer.
And they can also point to what appeared to be a very harsh second yellow card shown to Michael O’Neill five minutes after the restart for a foul on Ryan McHugh as the unfortunate defining moment in a contest that always engaged and which in the first half thrilled.
On top of that, they could also lay claim to having the best player on the pitch in debutant Paul Donaghy, who nailed 10 points, including three sublime efforts from play.
And, yet, the biggest takeaway from last night is that these days, Donegal are the better team with the deeper panel.
That quality, always evident throughout, told in the second half, when their numerical advantage provided them with enough ball to bleed the scores they needed, with inevitably the familiar towering presence that is Michael Murphy showing the way.
It was therefore fitting that it was his sixth and final point which in the 70th minute finally shut the door on a Tyrone team who had defied O’Neill’s sending-off and their wastefulness in front of the posts – they kicked a dozen wides – to stage a stirring final-quarter fightback.
However, they had left themselves with too much to do – having matched Donegal score for score in the first half, it was 0-10 apiece at the interval – and in the aftermath of O’Neill’s sending-off they failed to score from open play in the opening 30 minutes of the second-half.
In contrast, while Tyrone struggled in front of the posts, Murphy, Paddy McBrearty, Caolan McGonagle, Peadar Mogan and Ciaran Thompson – the latter with an outrageous booming effort – found the target to provide the visitors with a match-winning buffer.
Beyond that, it would be best not to read too much into this.
If opening-round league results normally come with obligatory health warnings, in these circumstances they need to be signposted with the same clarity and persistence of the public health regulations that led to us this point in the first instance.
It is a league that is closer to a 200metre sprint than a marathon and which comes packaged in Division 1 North as a mini Ulster championship within a knockout Ulster championship.
Only the naïve will hang out the bunting or close the curtains on the basis of early summer results.
Donegal started with 12 of the team that lined out against Tyrone last November, while the latter, even though under new management of Dooher and Logan opened with 10 of Mickey Harte’s final championship selection.
There were a couple of reasons for that.
One, which is universal, is that with a short-run up to the championship team managements around the country are desperate to get gametime into their established players, while in Ulster the main protagonists dare not blink irrespective of the competition lest it facilitate a psychological advantage that could be used against them later in the season.
Still, this did not have the claustrophobic feel this fixture has so regularly offered up in the past with the half-time score of 0-10 apiece having more the feel of what the predictive final scoreline when in the Jim McGuinness/Mickey Harte times these teams reached their defensive zenith.
Donegal, under Bonner, have long left those days behind and there was evidence here that Tyrone’s new management are set to follow the same path.
The inside twin strike force of Richard Donnelly and Conor McKenna made clear their intent to go direct, although, in truth, Harte had
come around to that way of thinking in latter times with the conversion of Cathal McShane, whose continued absence – he is still rehabbing from a second operation on his ankle – continues to hurt.
But they have more options these days.
Not least in Donaghy – in a sign of the times, the only debutant on the field last night – whose ability to sting from play and frees was reflected that when he scored with an outrageous effort on the stroke of half-time, he had accounted for half of Tyrone’s first-half tally, and there was only better to come.
The home team also carried the greater goal threat but McKenna botched a couple of half-chances while Shaun Patton saved smartly from Kieran McGeary.
For all that, though, Donegal still looked the more likely winners from the start.
These days they have the feel of a panel that has grown too big for Ulster.
When they get up to full strength – Stephen McMenamin, Odhran McFadden Ferry, Ciaran Gillespie and Odhran MacNiallais are all on the way back yet – the gap between them and the rest should become much more evident.
DONEGAL: S Patton; C Ward (E McHugh, 45), N McGee, B McCole; R McHugh, P Brennan (A McClean, 62), P Mogan; H McFadden (D O Baoill), C O’Baoill; N O’Donnell (E Doherty (70&4) Thompson, M Langan (E O’Donnell, 70) ; P McBrearty, M Murphy, J Brennan (O Gallen, 62) YELLOW CARDS: P Mogan (24)
SCORERS FOR DONEGAL: M Murphy 0-6 (0-3 frees), P McBrearty 0-4 (0-2 frees), C Thompson & J Brennan 0-2 each, C McGonagle, N O’Donnell, M Langan and P Mogan 0-1 each.
WIDES: (4) 5. frees: (9) 19.
TYRONE: N Morgan, R Brennan, R McNamee (M McKernan, 10), P Hampey; M Cassidy, P Harte, M O’Neill; F Burns, B Kennedy (C Munroe, ht); P Donaghy, M Donnelly, C Meyler; K McGeary (D Canavan, 67), C McKenna, R Donnelly (M Bradley, 42)
TYRONE: P Donaghy 0-10 (0-6 frees, 0-1 45), M O’Neill, C Meyler, K McGeary, C McKenna and M Bradley 0-1 each, N Morgan 0-1(45)
WIDES: (6) 12. frees: (8) 19
YELLOW CARDS: M O’Neill (24 & 40), K McGeary (35) RED CARD: M O’Neill (40)
REFEREE: J McQuillan (Cavan).