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Tyrone stroll to back-to-back Ulster titles

Thursday, 22 July 2010

A jubilant Tyrone captain, Brian Dooher, raises the Anglo-Celt Cup after their Ulster Senior Football Championship final win over Monaghan at Clones on Sunday.

Tyrone 1-14 Monaghan 0-7.

TYRONE strolled to a 13th Ulster SFC triumph, retaining the title for the first time since 1996 with a comfortable win over Monaghan.
The Farney men, bidding for a first success since 1988, failed to perform on the day in front of 34,634 fans on their own Clones ground.
Tyrone drew on all their vast experience to seize control of the contest, and long before the end, the game was up for Seamus McEnaney's men.
Ten different players scored for Mickey Harte's side, with the Cavanagh bothers leading the way, Sean on three points, and Colm with the only goal of the game in the 65th minute
And goalkeeper Pascal McConnell played his part with two brilliant first half saves from the Freeman brothers.
McConnell made the first of two stunning saves in the fourth minute, keeping out a shot from Tommy Freeman, who took advantage of a rare Justin McMahon lapse to get in behind and unleash a shot.
The sides were level on four occasions in that opening period, before the Red Hands pulled away as the interval approached.
Tommy Freeman and Paul Finlay were on target for the Farney men, with Tommy McGuigan and centre back Conor Gormley responding with Tyrone points.
All of the 'Red Hands' half backs registered in that first half, with Davy Harte and Philip Jordan also venturing forward to score.
It was Jordan who brought the teams level in the 22nd minute at 0-4 each, but the defending champions reeled off three points, through Sean Cavanagh, Kevin Hughes and Harte to go in at the break with a 0-7 to 0-4 advantage. Too many of Monaghan's 'big' players simply didn't perform. Tommy Freeman, Finlay and Dick Clerkin were all quiet and Owen Lennon faded after a bright opening quarter at midfield.
The amount of turnovers Tyrone's half-back line registered was astonishing and a full 40 minutes had passed by without a Monaghan score by the time Conor McManus sent over a 49th-minute free.
The irony of it was that no one Tyrone player stood out as having played a remarkable game. This was, instead, the archetypal 'team' performance. Tyrone appeared to be a side without a weakness.
Nothing highlighted that so much as the half-time statistics when seven players had been responsible for their seven points. Ten of their starters would register by the game's end, including all three half-backs and the two midfielders.
The lead was already five points with five minutes to go when Colm Cavanagh raced onto a pass from the superb Philip Jordan before shooting low past the fit-again Shane Duffy and into the bottom left corner of the net.
As a score, it was similar to a slew of others they had claimed throughout the afternoon when Monaghan's defence had seemingly melted into thin air.
Monaghan outdid Tyrone by 18 kickouts to eight in the first-half, the winners' full-forward line claimed just one point from play all day and franchise players like Sean Cavanagh and Brian Dooher have played far better games.
Stephen O'Neill wasn't playing due to a heel injury picked up in the win over Down and yet they are celebrating back-to-back Ulster titles for the first time since 1996.

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