Tyrone have that little bit extra

Tyrone have that little bit extra


No complaints as gallant Mayo go down fighting in gutsy duel

FINAL REPLAY
Tyrone 1-20
Mayo 1-15

(AET)
Seán Rice
Longford

THEY went down fighting. They had given all they could muster in their bid to cross the chasm. They were game to the end. But such plaudits will not compensate our minors for the pain of losing the All-Ireland minor replay at Longford.
They will find no source of comfort in the five-point margin of their defeat, nor in the praise heaped on them for the character shown in their dogged struggle to survive – epitomised in the composure of Aidan Walsh as he drilled a difficult free over the bar to earn a draw in the dying seconds of injury time.
But there is no denying the courage all of them as a unit displayed in holding over 15,000 spectators enthralled as two evenly balanced teams waged a thrilling battle, forcing the game into extra time.
It was in that extended period that Tyrone’s greater fitness stood to them. They rattled over three points without reply in the first half and they were faster to the breaks. It was not bottle that Mayo lacked in those last painful minutes; it was stamina.
And when Conor O’Neill pounced on a ball that had spilled away from Robert Hennelly a minute into the second half of extra time and slammed it into the net, the game finally had passed Mayo by.
It spelled heartbreak for the Mayo ’keeper who had been outstanding all afternoon with several brilliant saves, three of them from point blank range. It was a difficult ball to handle, dropping dangerously from a centre by Paddy McNeice. But Hennelly owes the game nothing. His net-minding inspired  his colleagues.
That goal put Tyrone six points ahead. Mayo staggered on searching for a miracle. For their efforts they were punished with a penalty after Niall McKenna was fouled in the area. Calmly, McNeice tapped the ball over the bar to reinforce the Red Hand lead.
We knew then it was all over. But if the players knew it they were not letting on. And their persistence paid off with a fisted goal to the net by James Cafferty, the centre to him perfectly arced for a punch by Cathal Freeman.
It came too late to spark another recovery or to narrow the five-point margin that separated them in the end and which did no justice to Mayo’s contribution to a game that had the nation riveted.
 Normal time had finished with the sides locked at fourteen points apiece, the same score on which the two ended the drawn match at Croke Park a week earlier.
The drama came early – no later than the first minute when Stephen MacRory somehow managed to get back to clear the ball off the goal line after Aidan O’Shea looked certain to score.
Fifteen minutes later it was Mayo’s turn to squirm as Hennelly moved quickly from his line and courageously thwarted O’Neill when it seemed the Tyrone man could not miss. Tyrone were two points in front at that stage benefiting from quick breaks by half-backs MacRory and Ronan McNabb.
But in the space of seven minutes Mayo had shot into the lead for the first time with points from Shane Nally, having his best game of the championship, Aidan Walsh and Eoin Reilly.
Before long, however, the pendulum was swinging back in Tyrone’s direction, mainly through the brilliance of corner forward Kyle Coney in the role of a third midfielder, and the strong running of Peter Harte at centre half-back.
 By half-time the northern side were ahead by 0-8 to 0-6 and eight minutes into the second half that two-point lead still separated the sides. But in the following five minutes Mayo responded with three points in a row, two from frees by Walsh, the other, from the superb Aidan O’Shea.
It was end-to-end stuff, tough, close and spine-tingling. By the 47th minute Paddy McNeice had Tyrone back on level terms, and at the other end goalkeeper Hennelly dramatically denied Ciarán Gervin and Coney in turn.
Three times in those last breathless minutes the sides were level, and it seemed O’Neill had won the day for Tyrone from a free a minute before the end. But the unflappable Walsh forced the game into extra time with stoppage time almost up.