O’Hare seeking another Red Hand triumph over the Kingdom

By Barry O’Donnell

LINING up in direct opposition to the fabled green and gold colours of Kerry this Sunday should bring back happy memories for Shea O’Hare.

Last May the Kingdom were the opposition when the Tyrone u-20s sealed a magnificent All-Ireland title in Portlaoise, with the dynamic Ardboe wing-back one of the undoubted stars of the side.

Such stand out displays ensured that O’Hare, along with one or two of his colleagues in Paul Devlin’s successful squad, was quickly fast-tracked into the county senior ranks.

That selection has helped Shea set up another meeting with Kerry this Sunday in Omagh, and while there is no glistening championship trophy on the line this time, it is the more rudimentary prize of two vital league points which are up for grabs.

O’Hare admits that a similar outcome to that u-20 decider would suit Tyrone just fine this weekend as they seek a return to the winners enclosure following two successive defeats.

“Tyrone and Kerry games over the years have been unreal to watch and there is never much between the two sides. The last time I played against them was in last year’s All Ireland U-20 Final and I would settle for a similar result.

“To get that we need to improve on Castlebar as Kerry have a number of quality players and I see that David Clifford made his first appearance of the season last weekend for them so he will take a bit of watching. We need to have our defensive structure right and keep the goals out. It’s not going to be easy but we will do our best to win at home again and get two points.”

The talented young defender cautioned however that the visitors’ need for a positive result is just as pressing as the hosts, given their second half collapse against Dublin in their last outing.

“There are no easy games in Division One and Kerry will be tough this weekend. They have the same number of points as ourselves so it really is a massive game for both of us. Like ourselves they will be disappointed to have taken nothing from last weekend’s game against Dublin after being in a strong position at half-time and if anything that will leave them even tougher to beat.

“We won first day out at Healy Park and hopefully our supporters will come out again on Sunday and get behind us because that is important.”

The Ardboe man is loving life in the county senior set-up right now, though he notices a clear difference in some aspects of the game to what he was accustomed to at under-age level.

“The main difference is the physicality. Obviously now you are going to get hit a lot harder and you are going to have to move the ball a lot quicker and don’t be taking the ball into contact as you will get ate up.”

Introduced off the bench in the second half against Mayo last weekend O’Hare acknowledges that from an attacking perspective Tyrone fell well short of the standards which the squad would set for themselves.

“We travelled down with the aim of getting two points but it didn’t work out that way and that was disappointing as was our display. I thought that our defence played well restricting them to only a dozen points and keeping the goals out, it was more going forward that we dropped the ball a few times, myself included.”