Scoreline flattered us, says Harte

Late goals from Sean Cavanagh and Mark Donnelly gave a lopsided look to the final scoreline in yesterday's All-Ireland SFC qualifier between Tyrone and Roscommon, according to Tyrone's manager.

Speaking after the 3-19 to 1-14 win for Tyrone, their long-serving manager Mickey Harte agreed that the match was a lot closer than the result suggests.

"It might have looked convincing but I wouldn't describe it as such," he said.

"Roscommon didn't deserve to lose by that amount. They dominated the first half even though we were a point ahead (1-9 to 1-8) at half-time.

"We just pulled away in the end, but the scoreline flattered us."

As they did against Armagh in the previous round, Harte's men had a vital scoring burst before the break. A rejuvenated Cavanagh tucked away a 29th minute goal and landed the point that split the sides.

In the second half, the Red Hands pressed on with pointed efforts from Brian McGuigan, Donnelly, Philip Jordan, Peter Harte, Sean O'Neill and substitute Owen Mulligan.

Roscommon showed their battling qualities when getting it back to a two-point game, but the two-goal blast left them out for the count.

"We're delighted with the win. I thought that in the first half we were not playing with any of the fluency that we had shown in the previous few weeks.

"In the opening half we were sucked into the one side of pitch and it didn't help us. But I think we addressed that half time and the second half performance was better."

Tyrone were heavy favourites to get past a Roscommon side that lost the Connacht final to Mayo two weeks ago.

Having accounted for Longford and Armagh in previous rounds, Harte's men were being pencilled in for a comfortable passage through to the last-eight of the Championship.

However, the Ballygawley-born boss admitted that his players were not as focused as they should have been against the Rossies, with the carrot of a quarter-final rematch with Dublin in the offing.

"We won two qualifiers and it was like we only needed to show up to beat Roscommon," he added.

"When people in the street are talking about playing Dublin and we hadn't even played Roscommon yet, it seeps into players' psyches.

"But we knew this would be tough and Roscommon were well in it for a long time."

Next Saturday's quarter-final at Croke Park will be Tyrone's fourth game in five weeks, whereas Dublin have been inactive since their Leinster final triumph over Wexford on July 10.

The Dubs will be hoping for a repeat of their 1-15 to 0-13 victory over Tyrone in the 2010 quarter-finals. Harte commented: "I think Dublin will start as favourites for the next day.

"But in fairness to Dublin it's not right that they should be left waiting four weeks for a game. It's not right and it's a problem easily fixed."