By 
TYRONE manager Malachy O’Rourke feels that his side were a bit like their old selves in the second half of Saturday’s vital victory over Offaly which aided in their quest to stave off the dreaded drop out of Division Two.
The Red Hands looked to be nursing a collective hangover in the first period after their shock defeat to Louth six days earlier and with half an hour played were locked in a stalemate with Mickey Harte’s men who prop up the table.
However it was a different story after the break at Dungannon as the hosts eventually swept to a 0-28 to 2-13 triumph, with the likes of Ruairi Canavan, Seanie O’Donnell and sub Darren McCurry leading the way in attack.
O’Rourke admitted his charges were a bit too passive for his liking in the first half as Offaly were allowed to monopolise the possession stakes for long phases, with a Tyrone glove barely laid on them.
“ When we play like that (second half intensity), we’re at our best. In the first half, we weren’t winning the kick-outs, we didn’t win many break balls, they were able, when they got the ball, to get up the field fairly comfortably.
“ And we weren’t pushing out high enough at times, and the were able to hold the ball and work a few scores. So at half-time, we knew that we had to be much better second half.
“ We were facing into a bit of a wind, but we knew that if we upped our intensity levels all around the field and just played better football, we could win the game, and that’s how it proved. We were pleased with the second half, first half a bit disappointing, but pleased overall.”
Fourteen different players got their names on the scoresheet for the victors, a stat which again pleased O’Rourke, especially given the absence of Darragh Canavan.
“ In the first half, although we didn’t have as much possession as we would have liked, our shot to score ratio was 82 percent, which was really high.
“I’m not sure what it was in the second half but I’m sure it was really good as well.
“ Look, there’s lots of things that have been good, but the overall package isn’t good enough yet. It’s great to get the two points, but we need to do better and we need to push on from here, and that’s what we hope to do.”
Despite the relief of getting a positive result on Saturday O’Rourke appreciates that a red hot Meath will present an altogether different proposition at Croke Park in a fortnight’s time “ We got a good week’s work done this week. The first half, we would like to have looked a wee bit better and have a wee bit more fluency to our play.
“But I think we got that more so in the second half, and now I suppose it’s about building on that and trying to push on for Meath next.”
O’Rourke also provided Tyrone supporters with some good news off the pitch in confirming that 2021 Footballer of the Year Kieran McGeary was back from his
travels and would take part in training this week, though he pointed out that injury had ruled out the availability of both Eoin McElholm and Ethan Jordan who had been named to start up front against Offaly.
“ Eoin was ruled out of the panel altogether, he picked up a knock a couple of week ago, and played last week and probably aggravated it, so on the advice of the physio he couldn’t do it because it would be too risky.
“ Ethan Jordan wasn’t as serious, we could maybe have tried him if we had needed to, but it was risky, so we left it where he was.”
