McCurry shaking off 'old man' injuries as Tyrone begin to believe

Tyrone's Darren McCurry celebrates a score against Mayo. Pic: ©INPHO/Tom O’Hanlon

Darren McCurry is hoping he can put an injury-ravaged year behind him and play a major part in Tyrone’s All-Ireland challenge.

Twelve months of niggles, knocks and frustrating recovery programmes have dogged the Edendork attacker’s efforts to find form, but he came off the bench at the weekend to return to his sparkling best.

Six classy scores, three off each foot, helped the Red Hands edge out Mayo to claim a place in the All-Ireland quarter-finals.

“I have struggled all year with injuries, and I haven’t been able to get a good block of training in,” said the 33-year-old former All-Star, now in his 15th season with Tyrone.

“They’re called old-fellow injuries, it’s just the body. I have struggled since last year’s quarter-final, shaking off a couple of injuries.

“Thankfully, after the Roscommon game, I was able to get a couple of weeks under the belt, I felt sharp in training this last week or so, so I knew coming on there, I knew I was in good shape to make a good impact.

“When you get to my age, you don’t know how many seasons you have left, especially with injuries, you never know what year is going to be your last.”

McCurry wasted no time in getting to the pace of the game, sending a free sailing between the posts just seconds after being introduced after 45 minutes at O’Neills Healy Park.

And he followed up with five more, four of them from play, to keep his side in touch at crucial moments of a gripping contest.

“It just happened to work out like that, but you try and do as much as you can to help the team get over the line, and it was a massive team performance. I was just happy to come on and make a good impact.

“It was a massive game to get through to the next round, into the quarter-finals, where we wanted to be at the start of the year, and thankfully we have done that.

“I could see from watching in the first half that there was a lot of space there.

“Some of the first half performances were brilliant, Michael (McKernan) and Cass (Ronan Cassidy) really took it to them, driving and breaking lines, and I thought we were very good around the middle on breaking balls and stuff.

“Listen, we have lots two work on, but we’re very happy to get through to the next round.” 

Back-to-back championship wins have turned things around for a side that failed to muster successive victories in a troubled Division 2 league campaign.

“It’s massive, it’s something that we talked about this last week or two, getting that back to back performance.

“We played decent against Armagh, but didn’t get over the line, then we put in a good performance and thankfully got over the line against Roscommon.

“Our big aim was to put in back-to-back performances, which we haven’t done in a long time.

“The main objective at the start of the year was to get into the quarter-finals and get back to Croke Park.

“A lot of these young boys haven’t played in Croke Park yet, so we were keen to get them in there.

“It’s the place that you want to be, for if you don’t get over the line, it’s a very competitive draw, so we wanted to get that extra week’s break and get into that quarter-final.” 

Tyrone’s fans have begun to believe in their team again, and were out in force in the 12,000-strong Omagh crowd at the weekend after a couple of seasons of dwindling attendances.

“It’s great to see so many supporters here, it’s a long time coming. We probably haven’t put on good performances this last year or so, but we’re just delighted to have all the supporters back supporting us, and we’re going to need it in Croke Park.”