Conn set his sights on Croker return

GET to Croke Park and you’re doing something right. This weekend marks Tyrone’s first championship appearance at GAA Headquarters in almost exactly two years – the last time they graced the hallowed sod was an ill-fated quarter-final against Kerry on July 1, 2023. Tyrone didn’t really raise a gallop that day and suffice it to say that Kerry were only too happy to twist the knife.

That was then and this is now, and the circumstances are rather different. On that aforementioned day against Kerry, Tyrone were playing their third game in as many weeks having come through an All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final against Donegal. Kerry by contrast had topped their group and were as fresh as two fiddles against their northern nemesis.

This time the roles are reversed. Tyrone avoided the inconvenience of an extra game and should, in theory, be the fresher outfit against Dublin this Saturday.

And their midfielder Conn Kilpatrick, who was at his rampaging best against Cavan a fortnight ago, is glad to be back in Croker. It’s been too long, he says.

“That was a big focal point for us – we haven’t been there in two years. For a county like Tyrone, it’s not what we’re used to, or what we expect when we started out the year. We’re happy to be there and we’ll get ourselves ready and hopefully put in a good performance.”

This is the third and seemingly final year of the All-Ireland round robin format. In previous years Tyrone failed in their quest to top the group and they knew the importance of avoiding the pitfall of a preliminary quarter-final.

Their round two defeat to Mayo could have scuppered their table-topping tilt but it all worked out in the end.

“You set out at the off-set to top the group and get that extra week’s break, but we knew we had to go to Brewster Park and put in a big performance against Cavan after underperforming against Mayo.

” We didn’t take anything for granted, we knew we had to put in a big shift. We were happy to get over the line but know there’s plenty to improve on, they had their purple patches at different times.

“We definitely put massive emphasis on getting that extra week’s break. In the last couple of years it probably hindered us in a way. Topping the group gives us an opportunity to get ourselves well-recovered, and to get a good look at who we’re going to be playing.

“Getting that break could be massive – playing three weeks on the trot and going to Croke Park for a big quarter-final is difficult as we found out ourselves a couple of years ago.”

So Tyrone are in a good place heading into this weekend. They ended their group stage campaign on a high note with a resounding victory over Cavan having learnt the lessons of a disappointing display at home to Mayo a fortnight prior.

“That game against Mayo, it definitely isn’t where we want to be. We would much rather have won that game and we’d nearly have been sitting in a quarter-final.

“You get those days sometimes. It’s not to say we took Mayo for granted – we just had an off-day and every team gets one of those at some stage in the year.

“We got a harsh lesson that we needed to knuckle down and we’d two weeks to do it. We knew we had a point to prove to ourselves and the supporters, and that we had to put in a performance [against Cavan] and thankfully we did that.”