Stevie senses a Red Hand upset on Saturday

TYRONE legend Stephen O’Neill is optimistic about his county’s chances in a mouth-watering All-Ireland semi-final clash against Kerry this Saturday at Croke Park.

The GAA is expecting a crowd in excess of sixty thousand supporters as Tyrone and Kerry take top billing following the Tailteann Cup showdown between Kildare and Limerick.

It’s set to be the tenth ever Senior Championship meeting between Tyrone and the Kingdom, Kerry edging the spoils currently five wins to four, and on this occasion the Munster giants are again tipped by the bookies to prevail, which to be fair is no big surprise given how they bamboozled Armagh in their quarter-final clash a fortnight ago.

But being underdogs is no bad thing and Stephen O’Neill believes Tyrone are perfectly primed to upset the odds this weekend and take their spot in an All-Ireland final against Donegal or Meath on Sunday, July 27.

“10 or 15 minutes into the second half against Dublin, I said whoever manages to come out on top in this game is going to go into the semi-final in a really good way,” said

“Thankfully Tyrone managed to finish really strong and get a flurry of scores. I thought they’d a lot of mistakes in the Dublin game so I’m sure the Tyrone lads will want to address that. I think the way Kerry performed against Armagh, that will really focus them on the massive task they have on hand on Saturday.

O’Neill was part of Raymond Galligan’s backroom at Cavan in the last two seasons, and he witnessed at first-hand the David Clifford effect when the Fossa phenomenon struck for a hat-trick in a preliminary quarter-final clash between the two counties last month. So, how exactly do you stop Clifford from running rampant? O’Neill believes Padraig Hampsey could be just the man for the job.

“There’s not much a defender can do with a player like David Clifford. He’s fast, he’s big, he’s strong, he’s got all the skills and all the abilities and he can do magical things. It’s one of those games where the 15 men out on the field have to really work hard and help.

“It’ll probably be Paudie Hampsey picking him up or somebody like that, who’ll help Paudie as best he can. Tyrone are blessed to have Paudie Hampsey because I think he’s the best man-marker there is in the business.

“ It’ll be a good battle and whoever picks up Seán O’Shea too is going to be another interesting one-on-one battle. It just leads to intrigue and everybody’s looking forward to seeing how the whole battle shapes up.”