By Alan Rodgers

A PLACE in the Nickey Rackard Cup final for the first time in four years has been successfully secured by the Tyrone hurlers who are now Croke Park bound following their impressive victory over Fermanagh in round four of the competition.

It will be a case of preparing for the decider at the end of this month for Stephen McGarry and the players.

They remain unbeaten in the championship this year, and will be aiming to maintain that record as the season reaches its climax.

Tyrone’s opponents aren’t yet known as they get set to meet Armagh in the final group game next weekend. But there is no doubting their determination to make their mark at headquarters, and take the title for a third time and first since 2022.

“We know that there’s a lot of improvement in us, especially based on our performance against Fermanagh. But we’re looking forward to Croke Park,” said the Antrim native.

“There’s competition for places within our panel. Everyone will be wanting to start that fixture and that game in Croke Park. So, it’s a nice place to be.

“We have played Fermanagh this year, and it was extremely tough down there.

They play a really good brand of hurling, they throw the ball through the hands and they have hard runners off the shoulder.”

Tyrone have now defeated Sligo, Mayo, Louth and Fermanagh in the Nickey Rackard. Armagh are next up once more at Garvaghey, but McGarry believes that their win over Louth on Saturday week past has been crucial to their fortunes.

“We got that wee slap in the face against Louth, where there was that wee bit of complacency that start to creep into our camp and performance going down to play Louth,” he added.

“But that was probably a good learning experience for us, especially going into today, not to be letting that complacency set in, but we navigated it well, and we have navigated the group stage pretty well.

“It’s an Ulster derby that’s next up in our back yard against Armagh, so it won’t take much getting geed up for that one.”

Tyrone’s only potential concern is the availability of key attacker, Mickey Little. He received a straight red card in the second half of Saturday’s win over Fermanagh. Officials are likely to await the referee’s report and examine video evidence before deciding on what needs to be done to ensure that the Eoghan Ruadh player is available for the final.