Dooher hopes for a change of fortune out west

Tyrone joint manager Brian Dooher is hoping that his side’s miserable runs of results out west will come to an end this weekend in Mayo.

The Reds Hands endured another frustrating outing to Connacht last Sunday afternoon, falling to a three point defeat to Galway at Tuam Stadium to leave them very much embroiled in a scrap at the bottom of the Division One table.

Four consolation scores at the backend of the contest put a much more positive sheen on the final scoreline from the visitors perspective, but the Tribesmen were full value for their 0-16 to 0-13 triumph.

Coming on the back of an opening day loss to Roscommon at the Hyde, it’s little wonder that Dooher is desperate to arrest the sequence of poor results in the western province, when the Tyrone team coach heads back down the N17 again on Saturday night to Castlebar to meet Mayo.

“ It’s a big challenge for us. We seen Mayo last night. They were very impressive against Kerry. There seems to be a new energy about them this year. They will be a big threat next week but all we can do is get ourselves dusted down and look at what we did good and what we did bad and try and improve some of the latter.”

Tyrone trailed Galway 0-7 to 0-3 at the break yesterday, but with the strong wind at their backs in the second period, they looked much more purposeful and determined on the restart.

They did manage to reduce the deficit to a single point, but with having spurned a couple of goal chances, they lost their stranglehold and the Tribesmen came on strong again, hitting six points on the spin to move out of sight.

Dooher was left ruing this lack of a clinical edge when his side held the supremacy as they let Galway off the hook.

“ It was disappointing in the second half. We worked hard to get back into it. We had opportunities to move on but they just didn’t make the most of them.

“ We were in a reasonable place (at half-time). It could have been better. They forced a few turnovers in the first half which is something we could do without. The boys worked hard in the second half. You can’t fault them. They put a great shift in and made the chances but just didn’t take them.

“ There was only a point in it at that stage so those (goal chances) would have made a difference. To be fair to Galway they came up the pitch and got key scores.”

Dooher admitted that the Red Hnads struggled to quell the Galway attacking threat when they ran at them directly during that closing stretch, with the physicality of the hosts to the fore

“We invited them onto us and they broke lines. We struggled to deal with it. We then hit a couple of long balls in. We were really chasing at that stage. The real harm was done midway through the second half.”

And the Tyrone boss knows that the side can ill-afford another reversal in Castlebar this weekend, which would leave the team facing an anxious battle for survival in the top flight with just three league matches remaining.

“ Every match is critical in Division One. We are on the backfoot now. We have a big match next week away to Mayo. We will have to regroup and get ready to go again.”