Harte's late intervention decisive as Tyrone topple Donegal

Jim McGuinness suffers a first loss in 16 at MacCumhaill Park stretching back to 2011 as Red Hands turn over the Ulster champions

Sat, 24 May, 2025 - 21:57

Alan Foley

All-Ireland SFC: Donegal 0-20 Tyrone 2-17

Tyrone began the round-robin stage of the All-Ireland SFC with a bang to topple Ulster SFC winners Donegal.

Peter Harte’s two-pointer with three minutes to play finally swung it Tyrone’s way, and a late Cormac Quinn point put the seal on a three-point win for McGuinness’s first loss in 16 at MacCumhaill Park stretching back to 2011.

With Shaun Patton having put in a decent warm-up but missing out with an ankle injury, Donegal had lost a foundation from the restarts and Tyrone’s Seanie O’Donnell’s two first-half goals gave Tyrone a foothold from which they could climb.

The first of those came on eight minutes when he punched past Gavin Mulreany when Caolan McGonagle failed to get a proper hold of a raking ball in from Michael McKernan.

O’Donnell seemed to be popping up here, there, and everywhere and on 24 minutes he scored his second. This time he came from deep on the run and with Mark Bradley supplying the lay-off, went for power and although Mulreany got something behind it, he couldn’t stop it going home due to its sheer power.

Michael Murphy scored two brilliant two-pointer frees into the wind and with Michael Langan also impressing, Donegal were just 2-7 to 0-11 down at the break, with Darren McCurry getting the orange flag waving himself.

A Ciaran Thompson point took Donegal back to within one, but the moving quarter didn’t happen. They would post four wides in succession, and Tyrone would post four points to move into a five-point lead of 2-11 to 0-12.

Murphy, 11 minutes after Donegal’s only second-half score, was typically the man to get them going, with another two-pointer from a free. Langan was also playing a huge part and Donegal went two up when Patrick McBrearty took on a long-ranger, 0-20 to 1-12.

But when it was in the melting pot, it was Tyrone who grabbed the initiative to post a huge win. With Cavan winning in Mayo last week to instantly scatter the pigeons, Group 1 could be shaping up to be a fascinating dogfight. Tyrone host a desperate Mayo at Healy Park next Saturday night before Donegal head to Cavan the following day.

Donegal: G Mulreany; F Roarty, B McCole, E Gallagher; R McHugh (0-1), C McGonagle, C Moore; H McFadden, M Langan (0-7); D Ó Baoill, C Thompson (0-2, 1f), S O’Donnell; C O’Donnell, M Murphy (0-8, 3 2pt f, 1f, 1 ’45), O Gallen.

Subs: O McFadden-Ferry for McGonagle (31). Subs: E McHugh for Ó Baoill (half-time), P McBrearty (0-2) for McFadden (42), P Mogan for O’Donnell (50), O Doherty for Gallagher (60).

Tyrone: N Morgan; C Quinn (0-1), P Hampsey, N Devlin; M McKernan (0-1), R Brennan, K McGeary (0-1); B Kennedy, C Kilpatrick; S O’Donnell (2-0), M Donnelly, C Daly (0-1); D McCurry (0-7, 1 2pt f, 2f), M Bradley (0-1), D Canavan (0-2f).

Subs: B McDonnell (0-1) for Kennedy (h-r), P Harte (0-2) for Donnelly (53), E McElholm for Bradley (55), F Burns for Brennan (57).

Referee: M McNally (Monaghan)