Mayo hurlers toppled by Tyrone
The Mayo hurlers have lost their second successive Christy Ring cup match
Christy Ring Cup Round 2
Tyrone 2-22
Mayo 1-17
Oisín McGovern
Castlebar
THE Mayo hurlers suffered their second defeat in this year’s Christy Ring Cup as they were seen off by an impressive Tyrone outfit in Hastings Insurance McHale Park on Saturday.
The Nicky Rackard champions reigned supreme in every department in a dominant second half display.
The sides were level on six occasions during the first half of a game that looked likely to yield any clear-cut goal chances.
So the first half’s only goal came through fortune rather than inspiration.
A long Tyrone delivery angled its way perfectly into the Mayo parallelogram where Sean Devlin raised his hurl to tip the sliotar back into the home net.
In every sense, it was the only thing that separated the two teams in the first half.
Mayo began the game the brighter with three unanswered points through Fergal Boland, Eamon Phillips and Eoin Delaney.
Tyrone hit back with three of their own before the scores swung back and forth like a pendulum for a good twenty-odd minutes.
Given the nature of the contest, Sean Duffin’s 29th minute goal felt like a much greater setback for Mayo than it should have.
But if that first goal was a setback, then the second was a hammer blow.
It was no fluke either – the impressive Sean Duffin untangling himself from his marker to tee up Lorcan Devlin, who caught it and drilled it past Bobby Douglas.
It was still early days in the second half, but it was going to be a long way back for Mayo to overturn the nine-point deficit.
They clawed it back to seven through Jason Coyne and Cormac Phillips before almost denting it when Adrian Phillips drove a low effort wide.
From here on Tyrone ruled the roost and soon found themselves ahead by double digits.
Mayo peppered the final quarter with a handful of points plus a few attempts on goal.
They eventually found the net when Joseph McManus’ long-rang drive was blocked by goalkeeper Liam Dunphy, only for it to roll an inch over the white line.
It was paltry consolation for Mayo.
Read the full report plus reaction in this Tuesday’s edition of The Mayo News.
Mayo
B Douglas; J Lyons, G McManus, C Murray; D Kenny, J Mooney (0-3), D Hill; C Phillips (0-6, 5f), D Huane; A Phillips, F Boland (0-1), E Delaney (0-4); M Farrell (0-1), J McManus (1-0), J Coyne (0-2)
Subs: J Murphy for D Hill (22), K Gallagher for Farrell (48) S Kenny for Murray (59); A Crossan for Kearns (66); J Ferguson for S Grogan (66); M McCann for McGurk (69).
Tyrone
L Dunphy; D Rafferty, R Devlin, C Devlin; C Kearns, D Begley (0-7, 6f), F Devlin; B McGurk, A Kelly (0-3); C Grogan (0-4), L Devlin (1-2), R Slane (0-1); O McKee, S Grogan (0-1), S Duffin (1-3, 2f)
Subs used: K Gallagher for Farrell (48); R Weir (0-1) for Duffin (57), SP McKernan for Rafferty (63)
Referee: B Keon (Galway)