Ricey hopeful of a Tyrone recovery in All-Ireland series

RYAN McMenamin wouldn’t be at all surprised if Tyrone make a full recovery from their provincial exit at the hands of Armagh and mount a charge through the upcoming All-Ireland Round Robin series and beyond.

Citing his own experience of springing back into contention in the old backdoor system, the three-time All-Ireland winner is confident that Malachy O’Rourke’s side are heading in the right direction regardless of their gut-wrenching defeat to Armagh in last Saturday’s Ulster Championship semi-final.

The draw for the upcoming All-Ireland SFC Round Robin series was made yesterday, with Tyrone getting their campaign underway with a trip to the new Ulster Champions – be that Armagh or Donegal – on the weekend of May 24/25.

A week later Tyrone will host whoever wins this Sunday’s Connacht final between Mayo and Galway, after which they will play Cavan in the third and final round at a neutral venue on the weekend of June 14/15.

Believing that the race for the Sam Maguire is more wide open than ever, McMenamin is hopeful that Tyrone can get back on track in the last 16.

“I think you have to be positive – you saw Dublin getting beaten at the weekend and it’s going to be a more open championship this year.

“The provincials are great but all of the teams always have an eye on the All-Ireland series and that’s where a lot of the football is going to be played, and where teams will ultimately kick on.

“The ground gets harder and the weather gets better and once you go on a run, anything can happen.

“There’s a lot of teams in around the same level, there’s only a very small number that are a wee bit ahead of the chasing pack.”

He continued: “One of the best things Mickey Harte used to say to us, is that we should always treat Ulster and the All-Ireland series as two different competitions.

“If we were beaten in Ulster, our attitude was ‘right, we’re in the next competition’ and I’m sure that’s the mindset of the current team – there’s still one more competition that can be won and I’d be optimistic that they can go on a run.”

There were plus points from Tyrone’s narrow defeat at the hands of Armagh, but one of the big talking points coming out of the match was their inability to deal with Ethan Rafferty’s pinpoint kickouts. 23 of his 24 restarts found an Armagh teammate, but McMenamin is hopeful we won’t see a repeat scenario later in the season, while he was encouraged by how Tyrone managed to haul their way back into contention when the game looked like it could start to slip away.

“I thought Armagh’s kick-outs were great, they only lost one which is crazy. They negated Brian Kennedy’s main strength – Brian’s been great for Tyrone this year and they were able to reduce his impact, and there’s other lads around the middle who are still relatively inexperienced and they need time to grow into the role.

“Armagh’s had consistency with their management for the last 10 or 12 years and I wouldn’t be too worried about what happened on Saturday because from the outside looking in you don’t know what’s going on in training and I definitely think it can be rectified.”

He added: “Another thing is that even when it wasn’t going well, Tyrone kept on hanging in there, especially in the first-half when it could have got away from them.

“I thought the Tyrone lads did very well to hang in there, and that’s important because you’re always going to get a purple patch at some stage – you have to be close enough to pounce when you do get your chance.”

The Dromore man also felt that the subs who were introduced in the second-half deserve credit for their role in Tyrone’s second-half revival.

“The players who came on made a massive impact – the likes of Ben McDonnell and Eoin McElholm. That’s what it’s all about – it’s a squad game and Malachy and his management team got that right.

“They introduced the subs at the right time and got us into a winning position with three minutes to go.

“Coming out of it there’s pluses and negatives and people will have different opinions, but look, there’s a lot the management got right and there’s other things they’ll know they can do better and I think we’re definitely making steady improvements.”