Tyrone to pose a tougher test than Derry for U21s

Damian McCarney

When a beaming Michael Murphy left the Brewster Park turf back in April 7, 2010, it was to stride up the steps to hold aloft the U21 Ulster Championship, on behalf of his triumphant Donegal team. The young Glenswilly star had terrorised the Cavan backline with his guile as much as his physicality.

In the shadow of the Donegal celebrations, Cavan’s then-manager Terry Hyland was left rueing costly individual errors, but was still man enough to face the press and even muster a few words of defiance:
“We came, we fought, we lost... but we’ll be back,” he vowed.
At the time you could be forgiven for thinking, well, what else could he say? Okay, amongst the Breffni ranks were a handful of players who would be eligible for the following year’s campaign, but against that, the county’s U21s had endured a dreadful four-year run of first round exits up to 2009.

Even reaching the final in 2010 looked anomalous. As it turned out, Hyland was as good as his word - not only did they come back, but they have simply refused to leave the summit of Ulster football ever since.
With the four-year anniversary of that bruising Brewster encounter just weeks away, Cavan’s U21s haven’t lost a provincial match since. It’s a breathtaking run in which Derry became victim number 10 to Peter Reilly’s charges last Wednesday night.
If Tyrone had their spies at Celtic Park last night, ahead of Wednesday’s quarter-final, they would have left wondering where the weaknesses are in this Cavan team, after such a formidable performance.
However, U21 manager Reilly wasn’t getting carried away with the result in Derry, noting the element of fortune they enjoyed along the way to a convincing win.
“The two goals in the first half were probably lucky enough, and that sent us on our way,” he told the Celt. “There were certain aspects of that game where we were probably lucky - that we got those opportunities, but the good thing was that we took them.”
Peter anticipates that tonight’s game, against the second favourites for the silverware, will provide a tougher test than the trip to Derry.
“Tyrone got to an All-Ireland minor final last year, and Tyrone traditionally at underage are very strong. Any game you go into you have to expect it to be more difficult than the previous one. We expect a tougher challenge than we did last week.”
“They will be strong all over the field, they’ve very good forwards. They’ve been playing to a system for a very long time - from minor to U21 to seniors they play a very similar type of football - and they have good footballers - so they have enough strengths for us to deal with.”
Reilly insists that Cavan’s incredible undefeated run in the provincial championship doesn’t weigh heavily on the current crop of U21s.

“The run means nothing to this group of players. Amongst this group are a lot who have no medals and it is irrelevant to them what previous teams did, they want their own success, so what happened last year, the year before and the year before that really isn’t very relevant to us.”
Asked if he’s confident going into tonight’s crucial game, he stresses the importance of performing.
“We’re happy enough but it’s about performing - you have to perform. If we perform to the level we’re capable of we’ll be very hopeful that we’ll be successful; if we come below that we run the risk we won’t be.

“It’s all about performance. We have our preparation done, we have our homework done, everything’s in place, it’s just about getting it done. I have no doubt that Tyrone are the same. We will be playing a very good team and it’s about whoever gets the best out of themselves on the night will get through.”