By Niall Gartland

TYRONE minors have gone unbeaten from the very start of the season, but manager Gerry Donnelly feels improvement is needed if they’re to overcome Monaghan in Saturday evening’s Ulster Championship semi-final at O’Neill’s Healy Park.

The Red Hands booked their spot in the last four with a fairly commanding round two victory over Cavan, though Donnelly wasn’t best pleased with elements of their play in the first-half.

While they did take a good 15 minutes to find their groove, there were still plenty of positives from a Tyrone perspective, including their controlled and precise build-up play into the face of a stiff breeze after the break.

And their opponents Cavan are no mugs – as the losers of their date with the Red Hands, they were pitted in a quarter-final encounter against Down last weekend, a de facto backdoor clash which they won comfortably, so they’re now in the other side of the semi-final draw and are a possible Ulster Championship final opponent should Tyrone prevail against Monaghan this Saturday.

Tyrone, meanwhile, avoided the scenic route and have had an extra week to prepare for their clash against a Farney side that did the business against Armagh on a scoreline of 2-15 to 2-7 last Saturday at Clones.

Gerard Donnelly’s side are bidding to reach a first Ulster Minor final for the county in four years, but the stakes are high and he believes they’ll need to play better than last time around if they’re to advance.

“We have lots to work out, albeit we’d have taken a one-point win going into the Cavan game – it was about the prize of a semi-final and avoiding the lottery of a quarter-final, and also ensuring a fortnight’s break.

“In that sense we achieved our goal but we need to be better than we were against Cavan. The semi-final comes with all the jeopardy – you can’t take a step back or look behind at what you’ve done better, the semi-final is the one: you’re either in an Ulster final or the season is over. It’s full jeopardy and we know we need to be better.”

Even though Tyrone were patchy early doors against Cavan, they hit a second-quarter purple patch and led by seven points at the break. The game wasn’t over, particularly given the blustery weather conditions, but Tyrone gave a really mature performance in the second-half and ran out deserved 0-19 to 0-13 victors.

“For parts of the first half I thought we were very poor, we were second to the ball, and credit to Cavan, they’re a very strong team. Even though we led by seven, Cavan might have been happy enough as they had the breeze in the second-half.

“We’d a lot of talking to do at half-time, and to be fair I thought in the second half we held the ball well and punched holes in their defence. We controlled the game well which is positive. We definitely had questions for the lads at half-time and they answered, so fair play to them.”