Clinical Tyrone are back in the groove
AFTER a spring of too much drama for their own good, Tyrone enjoyed the relative comfort of the routine at Brewster Park.
Starting with 12 of their All-Ireland winning team, once they had absorbed the predictable battling of the home side, their class, smarts and firepower won out to book an Ulster SFC quarter-final date with Derry in a fortnight’s time.
You could almost sense the relief of the champions that the summer has come this early and they are back up and running again, given that much of the past couple of months has been dominated by concern around discipline, form and, most pointedly, the departure of seven from last year’s Championship winning panel.
Here was an early reminder that Tyrone are contenders again after a third-quarter blitz reduced the contest to a procession.
When Darragh McGurn blazed a goal chance over the bar within a minute of the restart, the sides were locked together (1-6 to 0-9).
It only succeeded in prodding the Tyrone beast who unleashed their fury in all of its glory.
The arrival of Conor McKenna from the bench at the start of the second half proved to be the catalyst that yielded 1-8 on the trot and broke their hosts’ resolve.
However, it was a performance that came with a bitter twist at the death as a straight red card picked up by McKenna deep in injury time will almost certainly rule him out of that tie against the Oak Leafers in Omagh.
He will be missed after providing the creative element the champions had missed terribly in the opening half. Fittingly he was the one who effectively put the tie to bed when his goal effort bounced off the butt of the post in the 66th minute and rebounded back into the path of Liam Rafferty for Tyrone’s second goal.
In truth, it was long over before that as Tyrone’s high-powered attack, led as ever by the sublime Darren McCurry sparked into life with lethal effect during that third quarter.
In the end, the comfort of Tyrone’s victory was skewed by two late Fermanagh goals from Josh Largo Ellis and Conall Jones after the visitors eased up when 11 points up with 16 minutes left.
Natural born winners like Tyrone know that playing well is not always a perquisite to finding a way.
So it was here, the Red Hands were thoroughly outplayed in the first half and yet when the shortwhistle sounded, they found themselves in the lead (1-6 to 0-8)
On the pattern of play, there was no rational explanation for that other than the blatantly obvious.
In the 34th minute in a red-haired bolt from the blue, Conor Meyler took a pass from Niall Sludden, sped through a rather hesitant home defence and fired to the net.
The Omagh man had good fortune on his side with the suspicion he may have over-carried, and the immediate impact was that Fermanagh’s opening half-hour of admirable intensity and effort was nullified.
The home side deserved so much more, not least given the relentless manner in which James McMahon and Declan McCusker drove them on with surging runs from deep that allowed them to build a platform of dominance that yielded a purple patch of successive points from Seán Quigley (45), Conall Jones, and a brace from the excellent Ryan Lyons. That spell saw them lead by 0-5 to 0-2 at the end of the opening quarter.
It was no more than they deserved, Tyrone, so sluggish at the start that they were temporarily reduced to 14 when Michael O’Neill picked up a black card in the opening minute.
The champions would settle, though, primarily through the usual suspects of Meyler, Conn Kilpatrick and McCurry.
The latter pair combined superbly for the score of the opening half when Kilpatrick, having already won a turnover to start the move by fielding superbly inside his own square, hit McCurry with a precise 30-metre pass for a mark which the Edendork man converted eight minutes before half-time for a score – it cut the deficit to 0-5 to 0-4 – that felt as much a declaration of intent as a point.
As for Fermanagh, already one of only two counties to never win a provincial title, this amounted to leaving another unwanted footprint in history as they became the first official entrants to this summer’s second tier Tailteann Cup.
In truth, if they retain the interest and focus of the five-week lay-up before it gets underway, they are also one of the more likely to be there at the very end.
For now, though, that represents cold comfort.
TYRONE: N Morgan; M McKernan, R McNamee, P Hampsey; R Brennan, F Burns, C Meyler; C Kilpatrick, B Kennedy (B McDonnell 61); K McGeary (L Rafferty 49) M O’Neill (C McKenna h-t), N Sludden; D McCurry (M Conroy 57), C McShane, D Canavan (C Shields 68).
ScORERS: D McCurry 0-6 (2f, 2m), C Meyler, L Rafferty 1-0 each, C McShane 0-3 (1f), C McKenna 0-2, C Kilpatrick, K McGeary, N Sludden, D Canavan, M Conroy 0-1, B Kennedy (m) 0-1 each.
WidES: (6) 9.
Black caRd: M O’Neill1. YEllOW caRdS: K McGeary 36, C McKenna 45. REd caRd: C McKenna 70&4. FERMaNaGH: S McNally; R O Callaghan (O Kelm 55), J Cassidy, A Breen (J McDade 58); J McMahon, Flanagan, D McCusker; R Jones, B Horan; R Lyons, C Jones, JL Ellis; C Corrigan (G Jones 58), D McGurn, S Quigley. FERMaNaGH: C Jones 1-1, JL Ellis 1-0, S Quigley 0-3 (1f, 1 45), R Lyons 0-3 (1f), J McMahon, D McGurn 0-1, G Jones 0-1 (free).
WidES: (6) 12.
YEllOW caRdS: R Lyons 69, B Horan 69, D McGurn 24. REFEREE: J McQuillan (Cavan).