Ulster Minefield- Fact or Hype?

THE simple answer on the evidence of last year’s competition is a yes every day of the week – and twice on Sunday. Of 10 games played, including two replays, the only fixtures to leave the neutral cold were the opener between Cavan and Antrim and the quarter-final when Armagh evicted the Breffni side into the qualifiers.

The rest of the championship was glorious. Some snapshots: Barry Owens’s punched winning goal against Derry just months after heart surgery, Ronan Clarke’s masterclass against Down or Fermanagh’s resurrection from eight points down in the final.

Seemingly routine ties like Derry and Donegal in Ballybofey and Monaghan’s clash with Fermanagh in Enniskillen morphed into captivating, rip-roaring afternoons and then there was the “piece de resistance”. Down and Tyrone’s first meeting, in Omagh, wasn’t bad in itself. Little did we know at the time that it was merely an entrée to what would follow in Newry, namely 80 minutes of rollicking, white-knuckle football. Attendances, not surprisingly, rose by 10% even when the two replays are deducted from the figures and, lest we forget, Tyrone picked themselves up off the canvas to deliver a knockout of their own in September.