Tipperary’s U21 defeat fallout adds edge to qualifier
He may only have 23 tweets to his name but the Tipperary senior football boss’ thoughts following May’s controversial All-Ireland U21 defeat to Tyrone provide interesting reading ahead of this Saturday’s qualifier against Mickey Harte’s senior side.
Creedon, who reversed roles with his senior selector Tommy Toomey with the U21s, tweeted following the Parnell Park game: “A big thank you to all the Tipp supporters tonight no cup but great to be a group if (sic) players who play in a manly way.” As well as a number of his senior players, Creedon also retweeted Jamie Wall’s photograph of the front page of the Irish Examiner sports section where U21 selector Peter Canavan denied cynicism was preached by the management to players. Wall had written: “Utmost respect for Peter The Great, but he’s having a laugh if he thinks anyone who’s experienced Tyrone buys this..” Senior and U21 selector Michael O’Loughlin, who also endorsed Wall’s assessment, wasn’t as opaque as Creedon in his criticism of Tyrone’s behaviour that evening.
He also retweeted Wall’s claim that “Tyrone may not be the only purveyors of dark arts, but they are, & have been market leaders. #2010 #2013 #2015” Clonmel man O’Loughlin also re-tweeted a number of journalists’ comments about the nature of the victory as well as criticising TG4’s highlights package of the game: “poor highlights of u21 final..didnt show sending off..most controversial moment of game & chaos at the end #not good enough”.
O’Loughlin and football coach Michael McGeehin also discussed on Twitter a column written by Canavan in which he states he never witnessed as much sledging in a game as the Donegal-Tyrone Ulster
championship preliminary round game. O’Loughlin had previously rhetorically asked: “is this guy (Canavan) for real?” Canavan is likely to be in the Sky Sports outside broadcast studio for the game but a third of that Tipperary U21 team are in line to start on Saturday as they did against Louth — Colin O’Riordan, Kevin O’Halloran, Evan Comerford, Jimmy Feehan and Liam Casey.
Steven O’Brien would too were he not injured while Jason Lonergan and Colm O’Shaughnessy should be on the bench.
For Tyrone, Mark Bradley is the only starting common denominator between their U21 and senior teams with the Parnell Park goalscorer on the bench. It mightn’t be difficult for them to discern between the two grades but for Tipperary it’s almost impossible. Dress it up anyway you want but for them it’s a grudge match.
