Tyrone Denied By Late Dublin Goal

Sunday 08.03.2015

Club

Dublin 1-9 Tyrone 0-12

Tyrone were robbed of a deserved victory at Croke Park on Saturday evening when a late goal from Dublin marksman Dean Rock gave the home side a barely deserved share of the spoils. Mickey Harte’s side had produced a master class of organised and disciplined defending to keep their more illustrious opponents at bay and led by three as the game entered the closing minutes. Rock’s late fisted effort however ensured the teams would have to settle for a point apiece.

This result leaves Tyrone on four points from four matches and a step closer to securing their Division One status for next year.

Dublin went into this game as raging hot favourites but Tyrone, showing one change from their selected line out with Cathal Mc Shane in for Conor Mc Aliskey at corner forward, settled best. Their game plan was based on hard running, strong support play and intelligent counter attacking.

Sean Cavanagh, Justin Mc Mahon and the impressive Padraig Mc Nulty lofted scores as the visitors took the game to Dublin. However they would have been disappointed to have reached the break level at 0-6 apiece considering the number of chances they had created in the opening half. Five shots dropped short into Cluxton’s hands while Niall Morgan and Darren Mc Curry both missed from very scorable dead balls.

Tyrone introduced Mark Bradley for the second half and his pace and movement caused numerous problems for the Dublin defence.

Once again scores were hard to come by but Tyrone’s superbly organised defensive strategy was proving hugely problematic for the Dubs. Justin Mc Mahon, Cathal Mc Carron, Ronan Mc Nabb and their colleagues denied their opponents time and space throughout an intriguing second period.

With Bradley, Mattie Donnelly, Barry Tierney, Sean Cavanagh and Darren Mc Curry on target Tyrone opened up a three point lead as the game headed towards full time.

Dublin emptied the bench in an attempt to salvage something from the match and were rewarded when the Tyrone defence failed to clear the ball as it rebounded off the post. Eoghan O’Gara reacted first to pass the ball to Rock whose timely flick evaded the outstretched arms of Morgan in goals.

It was a goal their play hardly merited but with two minutes of added time remaining the fear was that Tyrone would get nothing from the game as the Dubs pushed for the win. However composed and controlled play from Mickey Harte’s side resulted in a foul on the impressive Sean Cavanagh. Niall Morgan was narrowly wide with the kick and the game ended on a scoreline of Tyrone 0-12, Dublin 1-9.

Dublin: S Cluxton, E Culligan, R O’Carroll, J Cooper, N Devereux, P McMahon, J McCaffrey, D Bastick, E O Conghaile (0-1), T Brady, D Rock (1-6, 0-4f), C Kilkenny, K McManamon, P Andrews, B Brogan (0-1).

Subs: C O’Sullivan for Bastick (28), E O’Gara for Andrews (h-t), P Flynn (0-1) for Kilkenny (h-t), J McCarthy for McMahon (58), S Carthy for O Conghaile (63), C Costello for Brady (66).

Tyrone: N Morgan (0-1, f), A McCrory, R McNamee, C McCarron, R McNabb, J McMahon (0-1), P Harte, C Cavanagh, P McNulty (0-1), T McCann, M Donnelly (0-1), B Tierney (0-1), D McCurry (0-2, 2f), S Cavanagh (0-4, 4f), C McShane.

Subs: M Bradley (0-1) for McShane (h-t). PJ Lavery for McCaffrey (54), C McCann for Tierney (65).