There was a bit of soul searching – Frank Burns

A WEEK is a long time in politics they say and that can also be true about National League football as Tyrone got off the mark at the second time of asking with a comfortable win over neighbours Roscommon.

After the disappointment of an opening day defeat away to Roscommon there was a lot more energy and fluency from Tyrone this time around and it showed throughout.

Frank Burns gave a man of the match display following a late call up and he admitted that the group had done bit of talking at training during the week.

“There was a bit of soul searching at training in Garvaghey during the week,” he admits.

“People were saying that we had perhaps become a bit soft after winning the All Ireland and Brian put that question to us to see what was in the bellies and thankfully we got a response today but we have to keep showing that going forward.

“I wouldn’t say that we got a bit soft and trained any less than teams did in years gone by when defending the All Ireland. Honestly it’s hard to just put the finger on what happened last year as we trained just as hard as we did in 2021, if not harder. Look it’s a new year and we just wanted to push as hard as we can and see where it takes us.

“Last week in Roscommon was under par for us but the good thing about the National League is that there is only a week between games. We knew that we had only seven days to get ready for Donegal and show a bit of a response and thankfully we did that today.”

Despite playing against the wind in the first half, Tyrone were out of the traps quickly registering the opening three points to give them an advantage that they were never to lose.

“We knew that we had to get off to a fast start because if Donegal get in front of you they are a hard side to claw back as they keep possession and get numbers back,” continued Burns.

“It was vitally important that we started well and we did that with those two or three early scores and that helped settle us.

“We had to be patient at times today, we couldn’t afford to go at them all the time. We learned that from the last two games against Roscommon and Derry when we were caught out on the counter attack and paid the price. I suppose we took the learning out of those displays and implemented them today.

“We conceded six goals in our last two games and that is nowhere good enough at any level. We worked on that and managed to keep a clean sheet today. The team that scores the most goals normally wins the game and we have to build on that today and make ourselves a lot harder to beat going forward.”

It certainly was two crucial points to get but Frank knows the challenges are going to get harder over the next number of weeks in what is a very competitive top flight and he knows that they have to build on this victory.

“Our next three games are against Galway, Mayo and Kerry who are arguably the top three teams in the country at the minute so it was very important that we got a win today,” he said.

“Healy Park is our home patch and we have three games here in the league this year. We haven’t made this place a fortress in recent years and we talked before today’s game if we can do this and today is a good start.”