Tyrone take major step, dominant Donegal, Monaghan's second-half struggles
1. Tyrone take major step
It was far from a freewheeling classic of a football game, but at this stage of the season the outcome is the only real currency. Tyrone had already lost twice in this summer’s championship before they arrived in Croke Park last night. If Dublin joined Armagh and Mayo in that list of conquerors, then Malachy O’Rourke’s side were bound for the exit door.
Instead they took a major step forward. For the first time since 2021 when they lifted Sam, they will contest on the last four stage. Their performance was pockmarked by errors, the match was nervy and anxious for long stretches, but Tyrone cleared their minds and pushed on confidently at the decisive phase.
They looked at Luke Breathnach pointing in the 64th minute to pull Dublin within one, and then struck 0-7 without reply in the remainder of the game. Four of those were supplied by substittutes. The electricity provided by Eoin McElholm and Ruairi Canavan suggested Tyrone have the depth and attacking range to trouble anyone. There was a few moments of brilliance by Darragh Canavan as he hit three points from play over the course of the game.
And the big moments by their experienced core of Peter Harte, Mattie Donnelly, Niall Morgan, and man-of-the-match Kieran McGeary, illustrated that they remain a team with a lot of big game know-how.
“You talk about the skill and the work but it is that raw bite and fight for the jersey,” remarked Malachy O’Rourke afterwards.
“That’s probably the most pleasing thing of all. You’re obviously looking at quality and a good high skill level and everything else.
“But if you don’t have that bite and you don’t have that, the fellas prepared to work really hard for each other and there’s no such thing as a lost cause, you’re not going to win. So really delighted with that. In fairness to the boys, they’ve shown great application all year.”
2. Dominant Donegal
‘Donegal, Donegal’ rang out around Croke Park down the stretch yesterday evening.
The Tír Chonaill faithful headed for the Hills happy, McGuinness and co set for their second All-Ireland semi-final on the bounce.
They had to dig deep to overcome Monaghan at Croke Park yesterday, Donegal trailing by seven points at half time, 1-15 to 0-11. They looked leggy, the six-day turnaround and hectic schedule appearing like it may catch up with them. But they found another gear in the second period, outscoring their opponents 1-15 to 0-5 — and 0-11 to 0-0 from the 46th to 68th minutes.
In all, they scored 1-26 from 26 scoring chances and hit just four wides, three of those from Michael Murphy. He finished with 0-4, split evenly between play and wides. Donegal had nine different scorers, all but one hitting more than a point. Michael Langan led the charge with 1-3 on his 100th appearance for the county, while himself, Murphy, Conor O’Donnell, Ciarán Thompson, Oisín Gallen and Shane O’Donnell all clipped 0-3 or more.
This, of course, all stemmed from defensive solidity, goalkeeper Shaun Patton bouncing back after a nervy opening period. Their bench press was key too, with Patrick McBrearty kicking two big scores which encapsulated their experience and composure through the endgame.
The substitute clenched his first and let out a roar after raising his first white flag through the blitz, himself and the Donegal faithful loving it and hoping there is more to come.
3. Monaghan’s second-half struggles
Rory Beggan landed a mammoth two-pointer after the first-half buzzer and Monaghan headed for the dressing room seven points up. They will have been pleased with their 35 minutes’ work.
Gabriel Bannigan’s side had Donegal on the ropes. His nephew, Míchéal, was the goalscorer, while they kicked four two-pointers, with brilliant Beggan and Andrew Woods on song. There was room for improvement too, with a fair share of wides recorded.
But Donegal utterly outplayed them from there. Monaghan failed to score for 22 minutes. They tried to force matters down the stretch, often overcomplicating things as they desperately tried to stop the rot, and finished with 12 wides in all.
This was a puzzling collapse, a limp exit.
“It was definitely a game of two halves,” Bannigan said afterwards. “The first-half performance from Monaghan, to me, gives you a glimpse of what this team is capable of. But we need to be able to put two halves like that together if we’re going to take out a team like Donegal.”
Struggling to put his finger on it all, he added: “The things that we were doing brilliantly in the first half, we just weren’t able to replicate them in the second half.
“There were handling errors, there were poor options taken, we were getting shots blocked down, we kicked more wides. We didn’t seem to have the same hunger around the breaking ball. All of those things just went against us.”
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