Jordan: no excuses if we don’t win All-Ireland
Mickey Harte’s team are attempting to become the first Ulster county to achieve the feat since Down in 1961 and, unlike their quests in 2004 and 2006, they are operating with a full roster this time.
Armagh, Derry and Antrim have all been defeated with the minimum of fuss but Jordan is aware that Tyrone have been ambushed at this point of the season in the not-so-distant past.
“Two years ago we won an Ulster title after a pretty similar sort of match against Monaghan when we struggled to shake them off and Meath went and turned us over at Croke Park,” said Jordan.
“We are in good shape at the minute. We have very few injuries in the squad and that is something that we maybe haven’t had in a long time. We have no excuses and it is up to the players now to answer the questions.
“We want to win back-to-back All-Irelands.
“We have been talking about it all year and we believe we are in a better shape than ever to show it but I suppose we still have to show that out on the field.”
This time last year, Armagh emerged victorious from what was, by common consent, the finest Ulster Championship in modern times but the standard has dipped appreciably this summer and Tyrone move on to pastures new unsure of where they stand.
Jordan admits that the new Ulster champions have yet to be put to the pin of their collar this summer and that the hunger of any team seeking to claim successive All-Ireland titles is always open to question right up to the third Sunday in September.
“We have played who we have played and you can’t do much more than that,” added captain Brian Dooher. “I suppose it remains to be seen and there will be a lot of people who will say that we have not been tested.
“That’s the way it goes but we played Armagh in what was a very good game, and Derry were a very good outfit, and now we have played Antrim who have improved beyond all bounds.
“So that’s where we stand now and we will just have to prepare for the next day. We know that we won’t get away with that performance in the quarter-final. We won’t be able to go to sleep for pieces of the game. We will have to work for longer periods.”
Maybe, but Tyrone know what to do and when to do it. Denying Antrim momentum and encouragement in the first quarter was vital last Sunday. They did that and more, amassing a nine-point lead within half an hour.
“That was the key,” said Jordan. “We knew if we could get a few points ahead in the first 10, 15 minutes that that would set us up nicely but, unfortunately, Antrim didn’t drop the heads the way they might have.
“We eased up for the last 10 minutes of the first half and that gave them a wee bit of belief at half-time. That ended up costing us in the second half. We certainly have a lot of improving to do before our quarter-final.”
The county’s last two All-Ireland titles have been claimed via the back door but teams with as much mileage as they have under their belts tend to crave the shortest route to a particular destination and Tyrone are no different.
Defeat to Cork in last year’s Munster final sent Kerry through the qualifier route and though it meant just one more game, against Monaghan, it was one in which they could have been beaten and another hurdle they had to overcome.
Tyrone have identified the Ulster title as a vital staging post on their season’s route from day one, even if Jordan freely admits that the silverware “mightn’t mean as much to us as it does to Antrim”.
“Last year it worked out all right but this is the way we wanted to go,” said Dooher.
“This is something we wanted to do. Only one team can win the Ulster championship and that was something we set out at the start of the year.
“We didn’t win it last year but we have it now.
“To prepare for the next match some people believe that we would be better off going through the back door but we wanted to win Ulster.”
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