Tyrone clean sweep dreams live on as Farrell says farewell

Tyrone’s Mattie Donnelly in action against Brian Howard of Dublin. Pic: Ray McManus/Sportsfile

All-Ireland SFC quarter-final: Dublin 0-16 (0-0-16) Tyrone 0-23 (0-5-13)

Neither score detail truly tells the story of this bang average All-Ireland quarter-final but if one is more accurate, it’s the modified one.

As much as Tyrone’s flourish put an unfair complexion on it, Niall Morgan’s two-point free to cap their victory was appropriate.

Tyrone were by far the more audacious team and they were rewarded for it. Five orange flags to none said plenty about the disparity in the daring of the teams.

“I suppose it wasn’t a case that we came and said, ‘Look it, we’re going to go for two-pointers,’” insisted Tyrone manager Malachy O’Rourke. “But we have a number of lads who are good at shooting from distance and it just opened up and the boys backed themselves to score.

“But there’s no doubt it had a big impact in the first half. It meant that we went in leading by a point (0-11 to 0-10 at half-time) but we had four two-pointers, which is massive.”

Earlier in the week, Dublin great Barney Rock spoke about his county being too wedded to percentage play and two-pointers being anathema to that low risk, high conversion policy. It turned out that way again. Twenty-five two-pointers in 13 games in 2025 is a miserly return for a team with Dublin’s capabilities and intentions.

All in all, they raised just four orange flags in their three championship games in Croke Park, three against Armagh and one in seeing off Cork last week. Not only had the worst record for them among the last eight counties in the championship, theirs was the poorest among the final 12 as well.

Dessie Farrell accepted it was an issue but didn’t believe it was the reason for his team’s downfall. “It’s one of those things where you either have those natural instinctive kickers of the ball or you don’t. We still should have been able to do enough.

“I think today’s performance will be skewed on the fact that Tyrone kicked some of their two-pointers. But we wouldn’t be talking about that if we kicked more of our one-pointers I think. It was something we didn’t harp on (about). You either have those types of players or you don’t.”

For 50 minutes, Dublin didn’t have Con O’Callaghan and again the fate of their influential captain coloured their championship departure. In 2022, he was missing for the defeat to Kerry and last year looked completely out of sorts and perhaps struck by the illness that had pervaded the camp prior to that All-Ireland quarter-final loss to Galway.

Here, his heavily strapped left leg could only let him play for just over a quarter of this quarter and while he scored a point and generated a goal-scoring chance he was curtailed. A late point attempt that fell short as one did against Galway 12 months earlier spoke of another frustrating year for an uber-talent.

“We didn’t make a big deal about it internally because we felt we were going to create enough opportunities in games not to have to worry about that,” said Farrell. “Because sometimes you can make a thing of something and you end up forcing two-pointers or it impacts momentum and confidence and all of that sort of stuff.”

Yet strangely quiet performances from the likes of Seán Bugler and Brian Howard wouldn’t have been expected. On the flipside, without Michael McKernan, it mightn’t have been anticipated Tyrone would be so fluent with their two-point kicks but Peter Harte led the way in that department early on.

Wet, muggy conditions affected the game as a spectacle where player after player struggled even with gloves to control the ball. Dublin converted a woeful 45% of their chances and Tyrone weren’t all that better with a success rate of 56%. Six shots dropping short for Dublin was a glaring statistic.

Dublin had reason to query some of David Coldrick’s late decisions but they would have been more disappointed with their display and allowing Tyrone to exert so much pressure on them in their half of the field especially in the second half.

Tyrone were only a point ahead in the 65th minute when Stephen Cluxton stepped up to kick a two-point free wide but the quality of Brian Kennedy and Mattie Donnelly in the middle from the following kick-out engineered a score for substitute

Ruairí Canavan and another introduction Ben McDonnell fisted over another three minutes later. When O’Callaghan then failed to hit his mark, Dublin’s day was over.

For Tyrone, this ballroom-for-improvement victory was another reminder like their win in Ballybofey that they are going in the right direction, even if at times it is not linear. The dream of the clean sweep of senior, U20 and minor crowns lives on.

“We got relegated in the league, we were disappointed with that,” reviewed O’Rourke. “The championship was going better and we felt that we were improving. The boys were putting in a lot of effort and we just wanted to come down here today and put in a big performance.

“And I suppose we’ve smelt that improvement in a way. And obviously we felt if we got that we had a great chance of getting through and that’s how it turned out.”

Scorers for Dublin: C Costello (0-6, 2 frees); B O’Leary, P Small (0-2 each); S Cluxton (45), N Scully, K McGinnis, C O’Callaghan, C Kilkenny, L Breathnach (0-1 each).

Scorers for Tyrone: P Harte (0-4, 2 tps); D Canavan, N Morgan (1 tpf, 1 45) (0-3 each); K McGeary (1tp), P Teague (1tp), D McCurry (2 frees), C Daly, R Canavan (0-2 each); N Devlin, E McElholm, B McDonnell (0-1 each).

DUBLIN: S Cluxton; S MacMahon, E Murchan, D Byrne; B Howard, J Small, L Gannon; P Ó Cofaigh-Byrne, K McGinnis; S Bugler, N Scully, C Kilkenny; P Small, C Costello, B O’Leary.

Subs for Dublin: C Murphy for K McGinnis (44); C O’Callaghan for B O’Leary (50); L Breathnach for N Scully (temp 57-ft); T Lahiff for P Ó Cofaigh-Byrne (59); R McGarry for S Bugler (65); T Clancy for E Murchan (68).

TYRONE: N Morgan; P Hampsey, C Quinn; P Teague; R Brennan, K McGeary, C Quinn; B Kennedy (c), C Kilpatrick; S O’Donnell, C Daly, P Harte; D McCurry, D Canavan, M Donnelly.

Subs for Tyrone: M O’Neill for S O’Donnell (temp 10-20); B McDonnell for R Brennan (inj 44); E McElholm for D McCurry (52); A Clarke for C Quinn (56); C Meyler for P Teague (temp 59-ft); R Canavan for P Harte (63); M O’Neill for K McGeary (68).

Referee: P Neilan (Roscommon).