‘We dug deep in adversity’ says O’Rourke

DARE we begin to dream? Well, if an All-Ireland Senior Championship victory over a Jim McGuinness-led Donegal at Ballybofey doesn’t get the juices flowing, then what will?

Saturday evening’s three point victory ticked one box after another in that regard – and the first, and most prosaic, point to make is that chalking up a win in Tyrone’s first All-Ireland group stage match leaves them primed to go on and top the group.

But it’s not just that, it’s not just the two points on offer. It’s that this was inarguably Tyrone’s stand-out Championship result since lifting Sam back in 2021. It had statement victory written all over it in big, bold font.

This just generally doesn’t seem to happen – for one thing, it’s only the second time that Jim McGuinness has lost a championship match to an Ulster-based foe across two stints as Donegal manager spanning six years. Six years.

The last time it happened, guess who was on the opposition sidelines? Yep, Malachy O’Rourke (‘twas the 2013 Ulster final, by the way).

Saturday was also, and it’s not before time, the first ever time that McGuinness has lost to a Tyrone team (the record previously read 5-0 Donegal), so thankfully we’ve consigned that particular record to the dustbin.

That’s enough harping on about Jimmy – we’re not here to gloat – but there’s no denying that it was a satisfying day at the office.

Tyrone are back and who knows what the coming weeks and months will have in store, though Malachy O’Rourke’s focus for now is centered on next Saturday’s round two encounter at home to a wounded Mayo side.

“We knew we were coming here tonight and that we were hoping to get two points, but even if we got that two points, we knew we’ve another match next week and then Cavan after that.

“So, it obviously guarantees us nothing. It’s a great start to come here. It’s great for the confidence as well, you know, we’re just delighted with the two points tonight, but we just have to get ourselves dusted down straight away and ready for next week.”

Heading down the stretch, it was Tyrone who made their move. Inspirational points from Darren McCurry, Peter Harte (oh what a peach) and Cormac Quinn ensured the spoils of victory, and O’Rourke was delighted with his side’s resilience late on.

“Donegal is a great team. They’re Ulster champions, you know, they’re one of the best teams in the country.

“So we just knew that we were going to have to have a lot of things go for us.

“We were going to have to play really well, but we’re gonna have to show an awful lot of grit and an awful lot of character and just fight for every ball and fight for each other if we want to get anything out of it.

“And I’m just pleased to see that the boys did that every one of them, and one of the most pleasing things was that luck seemed to be going away from us a couple of occasions, yet we just held our composure, held our nerve, worked really hard for each other and got some quality scores and just glad we did.”

Malachy O’Rourke was all the more-delighted with his side’s qualities of perservence given two vastly experienced campaigners, Brian Kennedy and Padraig Hampsey, were withdrawn after shipping heavy knocks in the first-half.

Their direct replacements – Ben McDonnell and Peter Teague respectively – did extremely well, indicative of Tyrone’s strength-in-depth, and O’Rourke says the medical team will assess the extent of Hampsey and Kennedy’s injuries.

“The two boys took very, very bad knocks, you know, so we don’t know exactly what the story is with both of them.

“But, obviously we had to take them off, our medical team said no, we couldn’t do anything else. For them to be gone off and for the other boys to dig in and get them the result was brilliant and I think the boys wanted to do it for them as well.”

“In fairness to Pete [Teague] he was unlucky to lose his place for this. I thought Pete had a magnificent game when he came in, as did and all the other lads who came in.

“Ben came in for for big Brian as well and you had Petey [Harte] obviously and all the other lads who came in. It’s a really competitive panel and there’s a lot of lads there too, haven’t got that much game time, but they’re chomping at the bit as well.

“So that’s what we’re trying to grow; a really strong panel and everybody fighting for a place and so it’s a great step forward.”

O’Rourke was also glad to make amends for their narrow Ulster Championship defeat to Armagh a month ago.

“We could have stole something at the end [against Armagh], but we knew that our level of performance had to go up an extreme, I suppose, if we were going to compete with Donegal. I’m glad we did that, I suppose with losing the two lads, the two leaders. It was a big blow to us, but the rest of the boys dug in and then they ground out a brilliant victory.”