O’Rourke says qualifier route will help charges gain experience

Paddy O’Rourke believes his young Armagh players can learn more from a run through the qualifiers than they would have gained in mainstream championship football.

The heroic display they produced at the Athletic Grounds didn’t offer any suggestion that they wanted to veer off on the scenic route, but their manager is a pragmatist. In his three-year tenure as Armagh manager, the qualifiers have become something of a way of life for the Down All-Ireland winner, but he’s ready and eager to embrace the challenge.

“It’s all about building a team. There’s a lot of young players on that team, and if they want to move on, they have an opportunity to play in the qualifiers,” he said.

“A number of years ago, their year would be over, and they wouldn’t get the opportunity to do much about building a team. There’s a great opportunity now, there’s games in the back door, and I’m sure a lot of oppositions won’t want to meet them.”

A cracking game could, conceivably, have gone either way, but Tyrone were always more likely to emerge with the spoils. O’Rourke took no comfort from the fact that his team had contributed richly to an outstanding spectacle.

“It’s no consolation to come out the wrong side of a good game, but we would always be happy that we got a performance. But Tyrone are a quality team, and probably the players that they brought off the bench in the last few minutes helped them push on and win the game.”

He pointed to the loss through injury of Aaron Kernan and the dismissal of Kevin Dyas as huge setbacks which had a definitive effect on the outcome.

“Those things don’t help, but sometimes you can deal with those things, but it’s very difficult to play against Tyrone with 15 players. When you go down a man, Tyrone are the masters of possession football, and it was going to be extremely difficult when we lost the man.”

Tyrone boss Mickey Harte had spent six weeks examining and addressing the failings that had been exposed in the Division 2 final defeat to Kildare, and felt a measure of success had been achieved.

“When you don’t get the result you want, then there certainly is a greater examination of your conscience, and everybody had to do that.

“We had to look at the overall game plan, we had to probably be more creative in terms of a mix of play rather than a single style, and I hope that we will progress and do that,” said Harte.

And he was delighted to have played a part in entertaining the masses. A crowd of 16,418 and a live TV audience watched the Ulster championship come alive.

“Was there anybody there looking to go into the qualifiers? I didn’t notice it today anyway. So therefore the provincial championships are very much alive.

“This is the next era of Tyrone football, and you want to be winning Ulster championship matches, because if you don’t win championship matches, there’s a degree of growth missing in the maturity of all those players.