Tyrone vs Kerry NFL: Five Talking Points

Time to worry?

NEW managers are rightly granted a honeymoon period, and no-one is reaching for the panic button just yet, but it’s still a bit concerning that Tyrone have lost two of their opening three league games. It’s no exaggeration to say that we’re already locked in a battle for survival – in all likelihood Tyrone will need to win two of their final four matches to stay up. Those four matches? Kerry, Dublin, Donegal and Galway – there’s nothing easy there.

A dearth of two-pointers

ARE Tyrone ill-suited to the new rules? Again, it’s possibly to hasty to form a concrete judgement, but put it this way – from our opening three league matches, we have only registered three ‘two pointers’, one of which was a free from Darren McCurry against Armagh. Perhaps that speaks to a lack of long-range shooters in the team, though it’s still early days in the new season.

A strong home record

THERE’S a bit of a pattern to Tyrone’s recent league encounters against the Kingdom. Generally speaking, when they travel to the deep south, they come home empty-handed (a brilliant win on the last day of the 2022 season excepted). But when Kerry come to town, Tyrone are in their element, winning all three meetings on home turf in their uninterrupted run in the top-flight stretching back to 2017. Hopefully that bodes well for their chances this Sunday.

Figuring things out

TYRONE are blessed with talented inside forwards with the potential to wreak havoc on any given day. Darragh and Ruairi Canavan, Mark Bradley, Darren McCurry and Eoin McElholm – all supremely gifted footballers and we’re lucky to have them. They’re all of similar stature, and Irish News journalist Cahair O’Kane argued in a piece a few months back that we can’t play them all at once. Well, maybe so, but perhaps the issue is further out the pitch as the general attacking strategy isn’t really working.

A big double bill

HOPEFULLY Tyrone fans can come out in force to show their support for the men’s and ladies teams on Sunday. Tyrone ladies take on All-Ireland champions Kerry in the curtain-raiser at O’Neill’s Healy Park, a hugely appetising clash, before the big Division One clash against Kerry. Crowds have generally been pretty low – Tyrone’s game against Mayo attracted an audience of just a fraction over 6000 people, and it has become something of a running theme at Tyrone matches in recent years.