Armagh looking forward to Tyrone challenge say O’Mullan

By Shaun Casey

TABLE toppers Armagh are expecting their toughest championship test to date when they travel to O’Neill’s Healy Park, Omagh on Saturday and take on Ulster rivals Tyrone, says their boss PJ O’Mullan.

The Orchard County have earned two convincing victories in the opening two rounds, seeing off Roscommon and Louth by 11-points and 58-points respectively. The Wee County failed to score against Armagh in round two last week.

Tyrone should offer a sterner examination of Armagh’s championship winning credentials, although they head into the encounter off the back of a defeat having lost to Wicklow by three-points last weekend.

“We’re moving in the right way, I think one more victory will guarantee us at least a semi-final so after two wins, hopefully they can keep improving the way they have been,” said O’Mullan, in his first season in charge.

“Saturday is going to be a massive test for us. It’s an Ulster derby, they are neighbours, and Tyrone will be relishing a crack at Armagh, but Armagh will be relishing a crack at Tyrone as well.

“We don’t know much about Tyrone to be honest, so we’ll just concentrate on ourselves and make sure and get our own team right and we’ll see where that takes us, but we’ll certainly look forward to the game and look forward to the challenge.”

Tyrone will have home advantage in Omagh in round three, which could be “worth a few scores” for the Red Hand County says O’Mullan. “Home advantage in most games is usually worth a few scores,” he added.

“But Healy Park, I’m sure it’s a good enough ground and a good enough playing surface and both teams will be wanting to play Camogie. Tyrone Club Camogie is really on the up and they’ll be feeling that they’re well in the mix.

“They’ll be targeting that semi-final place like we are ourselves, that’s the date that all the teams in the competition are targeting. It’s a derby game and anything can happen in a derby game, but we’ll just try and prepare as best we can this week.”

On the Louth clash last weekend, O’Mullan was delighted to get gametime into his squad as well as resting a few regulars, as they racked up an incredible tally of 7-37 and left their visitors scoreless.

Sinead Quinn has been in fine form of late and she fired off a hattrick of goals while Corinna Doyle, Tiarna Maxwell, Katie Convie and Rionagh Leneghan all hit the net as well.

“We’d made eight changes, and we made a further five during the match. We have a panel of 27 and all 27 have got a run in the two games. I completely feel for Louth; they have players and a management team putting in an effort but they’re probably in the wrong competition.

“From our point of view, we just have to look at ourselves. We set targets for the game and thankfully we met the targets, so we’ll just move on now and concentrate on Tyrone this Saturday.”