Tyrone Masters get back to winning ways

TYRONE Masters got back to winning ways with a thumping victory over Down at Carrickmore last Saturday.

The Red Hands fell to a rare defeat on their last day out against Dublin, but with Stephen O’Neill making his first appearance of the season, they cruised to a goal-heavy victory against Down.

It was evident from early on that there was a gulf in class between the two sides as Colly McGurk opened the scoring with a long-range point followed by further scores from Gary Coney and Damian Kelly.

The barrage continued with goals from captain Conor Gormley and Michael Anderson, who finished as the game’s top scorer with a personal tally of 2-4, combined with points from Mark Donnelly, Damien McDevitt and Martin Taggart among others.

Tyrone rang the changes at half-time and the scoring spreee continued from Conor Gormley, Niall Gormley, Dónal McAnallen, Emmet McFadden, Plunkett Tuohey and Ronan Lafferty.

There were telling contributions on the day from Des Tracey (1-3) and Declan Coyle (1-2) while Stephen O’Neill applied two exquisite finishes to the Down net.

Down kept ralling to the end but the game was long over as a contest and Tyrone will now turn their focus to their next tie against Cavan on July 20.