Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Hands dish a slap down to bitter rivals
TYRONE justified their favourites tag to reach another Mckenna Cup final but they were pushed all the way by Derry at the Athletic Grounds.
It was a game that was in the melting pot for long spells but in the final analysis the introduction of Peter Harte (below) at half-time swung the game in favour of Tyrone as he kicked five points.
A Christopher Bradley free opened the scoring for Derry but Tyrone responded through Ben Mcdonnell and Ronan O’neill.
Bradley knocked over a sweetly struck 45 as well as another free with Shane Mcguigan and Enda
Lynn also on target. Just after the half hour mark, Bradley picked out Lynn with a sublime pass but the latter elected to fist a point instead of going for goal.
That left them three in front though but in the final five minutes of the first half, Tyrone upped the tempo with Ruairi Sludden and O’neill both knocking over frees with Conall Mccann tagging on a fine point from play to leave it all square.
Half-time sub Darragh Canavan put Tyrone in front on the restart but a Bradley free closed the gap before Patrick Coney blasted in a brilliant 45th minute goal, his shot to the top left hand corner of the net giving keeper Benny Gallen no chance.
Tyrone though held their opponents scoreless for the next 25 minutes with substitute Harte landing four frees in a row to give them a lead that they were never to lose and they didn’t look back.