NFL Division One A/ Tyrone 1-8 Limerick 0-9:Oh mercy! Anyone who willingly sat through both games of yesterday's double-bill at the Gaelic Grounds - myself included - soon realised there is nothing more tormenting than a good game of hurling followed by a poor game of football. It's like a nice tonic followed by bad medicine.
As Tyrone manager Mickey Harte admitted afterwards, there are always days at this stage of the league when winning is all that matters, even if that means winning ugly. This two-point victory over Limerick - just about deserved on the balance of whatever decent play there was - moves Tyrone out of relegation trouble and back in the hunt for survival in Division One. But it still leaves the question of whether the cup this Tyrone team is drinking from is half empty or half full.
As a game it went from bad to worse, with Limerick registering 17 wides. They failed to score from play in the first half, went 26 minutes of the second half without a score of any sort, and still ended up giving Tyrone a bit of a fright in the closing minutes.
Tyrone weren't much better - their game included a similar catalogue of errors and scoring famines. They led 1-3 to 0-4 at half-time, extended this by four points early in the second half, and then went 20 minutes without scoring again, when substitute Colm McCullagh calmed their nerves just as Limerick were hunting for a winning goal.
The only real bright point in Tyrone's case was the impressive show of debutant Niall Gormley at corner forward, who scored the game's only goal on 23 minutes after a fine pass from Davy Harte. Elsewhere Tyrone looked nothing like the All-Ireland winners of recent years, their midfield particularly poor in the absence of the injured Sean Cavanagh, and their blanket defence still far from impressive.
"Maybe our confidence is not particularly high at the minute," explained Harte, "and when your confidence is not high, players sometimes have to work doubly hard to do things that were like second nature some time back.
"So we have to play through this, and today was a step on that way. We came here looking for two points, and anything else after that was a bonus. We have to be content with that for now."
Tyrone travel to Kerry next Sunday, and Harte knows a repeat of this performance will be no good: "Of course it's a huge game. We're still way behind on points difference, and we need other people to falter, while we do well ourselves, if we're to get into the top four. It's in our own hands in a way though, because we have to go to Kerry and beat them, which is no easy task, and after that (we) have Mayo coming to Omagh.
"It is a very difficult run-in, and if we do get four points at the end of it we'll certainly be smiling. But the most important thing here was getting the points. If we didn't get them it was about avoiding Division Three. Not it's about trying to stay in Division One.
"We came here on a losing run, and we're not holding our performances together for anything like 70 minutes. Until we start doing that we'll struggle most days. Maybe over time, when we get a few of our injured men back, that will help settle the confidence factor, and if that comes along the season is early yet."
For Harte's Limerick counterpart Mickey Ned O'Sullivan it was even harder to find any positives. Michael Reidy's free-taking was all they had to show for the first half, and during the second half, effort after effort sailed wide of the posts, despite all the hard work done in breaking through the Tyrone defence.
They trailed 1-7 to 0-4 going into the last 10 minutes, before late scores from Reidy and substitute Mike Crowley put a little more respect on the scoreboard - not exactly what O'Sullivan was looking for.
"If we'd manage to get even three of those wides over maybe we would have won it," he said. "It's frustrating, because the more they tried the more tense they became, and sometimes they would have put those scores over with their eyes closed. They just weren't on today.
"I still felt we broke their defence down well. I mean we made 17 scoring opportunities that we kicked wide, against that defence. They were in difficulty at times. But the lads just didn't have their shooting boots."
For now, however, O'Sullivan wasn't contemplating the drop to Division Three: "Well I wouldn't worry about that. We had hoped to make the step up today. So far we've gone about 80 per cent, and know we can perform against the best of them. We have generated respect for Limerick football, but that's no good unless you show it on the scoreboard, and we still have to go that final 20 per cent, and start winning games. Teams like Tyrone win games they shouldn't win, because of their experience.
"That's still the difference between them and us really. We just need to be a lot more shrewd in front of the goal."
TYRONE: P McConnell; R McMenamin, J McMahon, D Carlin; D Harte (0-1), C Gormley, J McMahon; P Donnelly, Kelvin Hughes; B Dooher, S O'Neill (0-1, a free) R Mellon (0-2, both frees); N Gormley (1-2), Kevin Hughes (0-1), E McGinley. Subs: C McCullagh (0-1)for C Gormley (half time).
LIMERICK: S Kiely; D Carroll, J McCarthy, S Gallagher; P Ahern (0-1), P Browne, P Ranahan; T Carroll, J Galvin; S Lavin, J Ryan, J Cooke; J O'Brien, D Horan, M Reidy (0-6, five frees). Subs: M Crowley (0-2, one free)for Cooke (half time), T Cahill for Carroll (47 mins, inj), L Kavanagh for Lavin (64 mins).
Referee: B Tyrell(Tipperary).
