Tyrone finish group stage campaign with a flourish

Tyrone 1-18

Cork 0-17

TYRONE have stitched together back-to-back victories for the first time in over a year with a solid victory against Cork at Tullamore this afternoon, rubberstamping a second-placed finish in the table and home advantage in next weekend’s All-Ireland SFC Preliminary Round quarter-finals.

The Red Hands last claimed consecutive wins at the tail-end of their 2023 National Football League campaign, so they’ll take great heart from the manner of their win over Cork, keeping a clean sheet for the fourth successive game and playing some great football up front into the bargain.

There were stellar personal displays from a host of players, Darragh Canavan playing with dash and adventure up front, Seanie O’Donnell producing one of his best displays in a Tyrone jersey in his burgeoning career, and Niall Morgan and Mattie Donnelly typically impactful when it came to the overall flow of proceedings.

Donegal’s thumping 25-point victory over Clare meant that Tyrone missed out on the top spot on scoring difference, but that wasn’t entirely unexpected and the only real blemish on a good day’s work was a straight red card handed out to Conn Kilpatrick in the second-half for an off-the-ball incident.

The game was played at a pleasing pace and there was plenty of good football played at both ends of the pitch in the first-half, the scoreboard at the interval reading 0-10 to 0-9 in Cork’s favour.

A pivotal moment arrived in the 43rd minute when Cork full-forward Chris Óg Jones was black carded for a trip on Niall Morgan after the Tyrone goalkeeper had bravely averted the danger of a possible goal chance.

The Rebels didn’t fare well with having 14 men on the pitch, their challenge threatening to unravel completely, and it wasn’t long before Tyrone had the ball in the back of the net following a classy finish from Ben Cullen.

Cork kept on batting to the final whistle but Tyrone had enough in reserve to claim victory on a day where there were plenty more positives than minuses from a Red Hand perspective.

See this Monday’s Tyrone Herald for a full match report from the game