Impressive Tyrone overcome Roscommon to book U20 final spot
Tyrone's Cormac Devlin tussles with Roscommon's Eoghan Carthy. Pic: INPHO/John McVitty
A couple of hours after Tomás Ó Sé’s Kerry side stumbled and fell into next weekend’s All-Ireland U-20 final, Tyrone produced a stylish and ruthless attacking performance at Kingspan Breffni to overwhelm Roscommon and send out a real warning shot across the bows of the Kingdom.
A final margin of 10 points would suggest that this was comfortable for Paul Devlin’s side, but it was anything but – instead Roscommon asked serious questions of his team, and every time, these young Tyrone players came up with the answers.
This was particularly evident early in the second half when two goals in two minutes cut Tyrone’s lead from seven points to the bare minimum, though the Connacht champions will live to regret their failure to take any one of three chances that followed and move in front.
Instead Tyrone roared back into the game after steadying the ship with two long range dead ball scores from Conor McAneney, and once Eoin McElholm crowned his stylish all-round attacking display with a fantastic breakaway goal, the Red Hand man were in control again.
Cormac Devlin fired a couple of points with substitutes Noah Grimes and Conor Owens also adding their names to the lengthy list of scorers, bringing that number up to 11.
The only black mark from their perspective was a stoppage time skirmish that saw substitute Ruairí McHugh, as well as Senan Lambe and Ryan Dowling from Roscommon, pick up a straight red card, ruling him out of next weekend’s All-Ireland final against Kerry.
The story of both halves was a story of Roscommon starting brightly, but Tyrone responding in the manner of champions. Shane McGinley, who had been the star name in the Connacht champions’ attack throughout the year, kicked off the contest with a wonderful goal in reply to Shea O’Hare’s opening point.
With six minutes gone there were six scores on the board, and Tyrone had drawn level after Ronan Cassidy and then a brace from Ruairí McCullagh cancelled out McGinley’s goal.
From the first throw in, Tyrone looked to push up and defend high up the pitch, and they got a lot of joy out of this approach. Midfielders Ronan Fox and Conor O’Neill were strong in the air, allowing Paul Devlin’s side to really push up on kickouts, and this also brought wing backs Shea O’Hare and Ódhrán Brolly into the game.
A scything run from Joey Clark set up O’Neill for Tyrone’s first goal, and while Roscommon did undo some of that damage with the next two points, including a fine score on the run from Rob Heneghan, Tyrone hit another purple patch before half time, crowned by an excellent team goal that O’Hare slammed to the net.
Seven down at half-time, Roscommon found another huge start to the second half and after the first two points were shared, quickfire goals from Conor Ryan and Bobby Nugent brought them right back into it.
However a couple of very scorable chances to surf the wave and get in front proved costly, and once Tyrone hit another rich vein of form, they never looked back.
: E McElholm 1-2, C O’Neill 1-1, S O’Hare 1-1, R McCullagh 0-3, R Cassidy 0-3 (0-1f), C McAneney 0-2 (0-1f, 0-1 45), C Devlin 0-2, Ó Brolly 0-1, R Fox 0-1, N Grimes 0-1, C Owens 0-1f.
: S McGinley 1-5 (0-3f), B Nugent 1-1, C Ryan 1-0, D Hagney 0-1, R Heneghan 0-1.
: C McAneney; C Devlin, B Hughes, J Clarke; S O’Hare, M Rafferty, Ó Brolly; R Fox, C O’Neill; C Devlin, C Daly, G Potter; R Cassidy, R McCullagh, E McElholm.
Subs: F Nelis for Brolly (half-time), R McHugh for Devlin (41), P McCann for Fox (52), N Grimes for Cassidy (56), C Owens for McCullagh (58).
: S Allen; E Carthy, J Connolly, D Casey; S Lambe, E Kerins, J McGreal; C Harley, C Ryan; R Heneghan, R Hester, D Hagney; S McGinley, N O’Donnell, B Nugent.
Subs: R Dowling for Heneghan (30), C Campbell for Carthy (half-time), E O’Reilly for Hester (half-time), R Conlon for Hagney (45), O O’Flaherty for McGreal (54).
: Jonathan Hayes (Limerick).
