Tyrone impress against academy sides at SuperCupNI

IT’S hard to imagine that County Tyrone have had a better day at the SuperCupNI than yesterday (Tuesday).

In the afternoon the county Juniors shared the spoils in a six-goal thriller with West Ham United at Anderson Park, Coleraine, and, later that evening, the Premier boys recorded a memorable 2-0 victory over Newcastle United just up the road at The Heights.

Those results against the Premier League academy sides meant that both the under-14 and under-16s had it all to play for going into their final group games later today.

The victory against the Magpies was the result of a polished second half performance and two excellent goals by striker Callum Lenehan-Hunter and captain Jack Cowden.

And it left manager Martin Gallagher with a broad beaming smile on his face.

“Second half our keeper didn’t have to make a save,” said the Strabane man.

“We controlled things in the second half and we deserved our 2-0 victory at the end of it.

Earlier in the day, a Joel Kerr-inspired Juniors led the Hammers 3-2 until the fifth minute of added time when Amran Saifudden grabbed a precious equaliser for the young Londoners.

Kerr netted twice for Tyrone after creating the opener for Logan O’Connor but in the end Chris Colhoun and David Gilfillan’s team had to settle for share of the spoils.

Colhoun admitted that losing the lead with the last kick of the game was a hard pill to swallow.

“First and foremost we are disappointed to only come away with a point against West Ham,” he said.

“I thought for long periods of the game we were the better team. I’m so proud of the boys, there were so many positives from that performance.”

At 3pm the Juniors take on Prospects 2 Pro needing a win to have any chance of reaching the last four while the Premier team require a similar result against Northeast Rush – kick off 6.30pm –  to have any chance of qualifying for main competition. Both games are at Broughshane.