Tyrone Masters chasing historic four in-a-row

By Niall Gartland

TYRONE Masters go in search of a historic four in-a-row when they travel to the traditional home of Cavan football, Kingspan Breffni Park, to face Roscommon in the Dr Mick Loftus Cup Final on Saturday.

The Red Hands are bidding to become the first ever team to win four All-Ireland over-40s titles in succession – presently they share the record of winning three on the trot with Galway, who dominated the Masters scene between 2012 and 2014.

By coincidence, it was Tyrone who put a halt to Galway’s victorious run, and now a significant slice history is on the line for the Red Hands against the Rossies this weekend a decade onwards.

It would be some achievement for all involved with the Tyrone set-up right across the panel, many of whom were involved in all three of their previous successes.

And the chance of making history something that joint-manager Kieran Leonard, a veteran of the Masters scene alongside brother Damien and father Joe, is certainly mindful of.

“We’re hoping to be the first team to win four in-a-row. When we won our first All-Ireland, Galway were going for their fourth in a row and we managed to stop that. Hopefully we’ll be the first to do so, it’d be a brilliant achievement and we feel our players deserve it for the efforts they’ve put in since 2021.”

The Red Hands endured an unfamiliar feeling earlier in the campaign when they not only came out second best against Dublin, but fell considerably short on the scoreboard as well.

Perhaps an element of complacency had seeped into the ranks, but they knuckled down and made amends on their last day out with a brilliant performance against a Dublin team boasting the likes of former Footballer of the Year Bernard Brogan.

Kieran said: “The way the format is structured, it can be easy to take your eye off the ball. If there was ever a ‘good’ time to lose a game, the Dublin match was probably it.

“Dublin have eight or nine new faces this year and are a very strong team and we found that out to our cost in the group stages. They gave us a real trimming but, you know something, it was a blessing in disguise for our boys.”

“The boys got back down on the training field, they really knuckled down. They were disappointed as well as it was new territory for them.

“We got a couple of wins to get ourselves into the play-offs and ended up meeting Dublin again in the semi-finals, we turned the tables on them, it was a fantastic performance from our lads that day.”

Standing in Tyrone’s way of another All-Ireland triumph is Roscommon, who bettered the men from the Kingdom in their own semi-final clash. They lost in last year’s All-Ireland Plate final to Mayo and it’s a big ask to better Tyrone, but they have some strong players like captain Ian Kilbride and Brian Higgins in particular, both of whom were former senior footballers for the county.

“We have to take Roscommon on merit, they haven’t been beaten all year. They had six qualifier games and won five and drew their other, then they beat last year’s finalists Kerry in the semi-final. We can’t take them for granted, we’re going to have to go out and do the business.”