Off to the Orchard this weekend

A COLD harsh slap of reality could puncture the optimism that permeated across the County in the aftermath of Tyrone’s ultimately convincing first night win in the National League when they head into the lion’s den to tackle All-Ireland champions Armagh this Saturday night.

The Red Hands will be hell bent on building on that successful start against Derry, but Malachy O’Rourke and his charges know full well that claiming victory on the road against the Sam Maguire holders, represents a much tougher assignment.

And the last thing that Tyrone probably needed was to be tackling a wounded Armagh, with Kieran McGeeney’s men on the wrong end of a sobering six point loss to Galway last weekend out west in Salthill.

Compounding their misery at Pearse Stadium was the straight red card meted out to midfielder Niall Grimley for striking, leaving him suspended for this Saturday evening, while another figure instrumental to their magnificent All-Ireland success last summer, Rian O’Neill, has announced he is stepping away from inter-county action for the foreseeable future.

However the Orchard still have enough talent at their disposal to seek to lay down a marker against their fierce local rivals this weekend, and demonstrate that they remain the top dogs in the country for now at least.

Throw in the frenzied home support they are always guaranteed to whip up at the Athletic Grounds and it’s little wonder that O’Rourke is playing down any lofty expectations within Tyrone built on the back of the Derry triumph.

“ Armagh were beaten on Saturday and it’s often the way that the team who were beaten have a real focus during the week and get the points the next week. So it’s going to be a really tough game down in Armagh but at the same time we know all the games are going to be tough.

“ We just want to see how we get on week to week and see what we are doing well and what we are not doing so well. The aim in the league is to seek to keep improving and hopefully get enough points to keep ourselves in the Division.”

Reflecting on the Derry win, O’Rourke was especially pleased with how quickly the Tyrone players embraced the radical new rule changes, with no bookings accrued, or men falling foul of the new 50-metre advancement penalty for dissent at the concession of a free.

“ That was pleasing. We concentrated on that in our own in house games to get on top of that because it is a big punishment. The boys were disciplined at the back which was good. Their tackling was disciplined and we didn’t give away needless frees and obviously no yellow or red cards.”