O’Rourke happy with recent displays despite failure to stay up

WHILE disappointed that his first league campaign in charge of Tyrone had culminated in their relegation from Division One, manager Malachy O’Rourke has quickly turned his thoughts to the Ulster Championship.

The Red Hands took care of their own matters in dispatching with Dublin 2-20 to 1-16 in Omagh on Sunday, but they needed a favour or two from elsewhere if they were to stay up, and that scenario never arose.

Tyrone will now be operating in Division Two next year for the first time since 2016.

The side made a bit of unwanted history at the weekend, becoming the first county to lose their top flight status despite accumulating seven points, and O’Rourke admitted that it was unfortunate to go down despite the clear upturn in performances of late.

“ I suppose that’s all we could control the performance and we wanted to make sure that we kept our side of the bargain and then it was out of our hands, but the boys put in a great performance and you know we’ve seen that over the last number of weeks. We’re thinking we’re steadily getting better.

“ It’s just unfortunate that the performance didn’t keep us up, but that’s life and we just have to get on.

“ I suppose we knew coming in today, the only thing we could control was our own performance and we weren’t going into the other permutation that was, that was out of our control.

“ And that’s we got, we got a really good performance, we’re really happy with that. But the big thing was to get a performance and I think that the, the graph has been going in one direction this last few performances. That’s that’s really very important to us as well, so we’re pleased with that.”

Tyrone produced a stunning attacking display in the first half and went in at the break leading 1-14 to 1-4, with Darren McCurry and Darragh Canavan looking red hot up front. O’Rourke was delighted with the way they flew out of the blocks.

“ There was a strong wind there and we got off to an OK start once Dublin got the goal, it sort of knocked us back a wee bit, but I thought that the response of the boys was great at that stage and and really took a grip of the game and put us in a great position at halftime.

“ Obviously in the second half then we were playing against the wind we had to change our style to play a wee bit and, you know, our backs to the wall a wee bit. But no, I thought we could control the game for large parts and then did enough to the end, which was very good.”

O’Rourke accepted that the intensity levels dropped off somewhat in the second half, with the goings on in the other three matches of more interset to home fans.

“ Yeah, I suppose we just kept abreast of what was going on, but we weren’t really that sure and it didn’t really, we were more concerned with just making sure that we got our performance right and that we won the game.

“ And that’s all we could control and so we did that, but it’s just it’s very disappointing obviously the way we finished the league. We’ve got 5 of the last 6 points, finished with 7 points overall and still go down.

“ Maybe it’s the first time it’s ever happened, so disappointing that way, but we just have to accept it.”

Looking back on the campaign as a whole, the manager was pleased with the upturn in showings as the league progressed.

“ We started off well obviously against Derry and then the next we lost the next was but just obviously we had the boys were missing, boys missing with injuries and things like that there.

“ So we had our full squad, but at the same time we felt we had enough to be picking up more points.

“ It was a wee bit disappointing that way, but we knew, there was a lot of good work being done behind the scenes, if you like, and we knew that the performance would improve, and that’s what we found in the last few weeks, but we just have to put it behind us now.

“ It’s disappointing, disappointing for the lads, disappointing for, for everybody in the county, obviously, because you want to be in the first division, but we just have to put our behind us now and the Championship.”