Progress made in O’Rourke’s first season AFTER a few lean years, Malachy O’Rourke was enlisted as Tyrone’s new senior intercounty manager and he engineered their best season since the All-Ireland winning year of 2021. There were a few bumps on the road – relegation to Division Two wasn’t in the script, albeit they were mightily unfortunate […]
BEFORE the Ulster Championship matches at the weekend, I got a text from Ruaidhri Currie, a good Rossa man. “Going to have a flutter. Loughmacrory or Kilcoo? Newbridge or Madden?” I texted back, “Kilcoo and Newbridge. Winning the county championship was the other two’s wildest dreams fulfilled. Impossible for them to adjust their sights to […]
By Michael McMullan NATHAN Kelly knows exactly what’s coming down the tracks when Kilcoo come to Omagh on Saturday night. The Loughmacrory captain was a regular in the crowd, looking on as the Down champions played in crunch Ulster and All-Ireland championship games down the years. The prize for winning a first-ever Tyrone title is […]
DERRY champions Newbridge got their Ulster Club Championship campaign underway with a hard-earned victory over newly-crowned Antrim champions Dunloy. In fairness to Dunloy, they made a game of it and gave Newbridge their fill of it, but, as a whole, the Derry men were probably slightly the better side. In Ulster, as I keep saying, […]
By Barry O’Donnell EOIN McElholm has already stockpiled an impressive array of medals and trophies in the still embryonic stage of his career, with both school and county, but even he was struggling to fully articulate what a first Tyrone title meant for Loughmacrory last Sunday. An All-Ireland winner with both Omagh CBS and Tyrone […]
THE club championship just keeps on giving. Look at last weekend, we were blessed with more amazing games taking place all over the country. Now we all love the inter-county season and what it brings but I think you will all admit that the club championship campaign has just got that little bit extra in […]
By Niall Gartland LOUGHMACRORY defender Dara Curran says that their unflinching belief in one another was an integral factor in their memorable journey to a historic first-ever Tyrone Senior Championship title after Sunday’s thrilling final win over Trillick. In the first few years since they returned to Division One, St Teresa’s earned a reputation as being extremely […]
By Michael McMullan SEEING out the closing stages of games was a vital part of Loughmacrory’s historic first county title. That’s the take of ace attacker Ruairi McCullagh who kicked six points in Sunday’s win over Trillick. Playing in their first ever final, Loughmacrory controlled much of the game but two Ciarán Daly goals almost […]
By Alan Rodgers ONE major decision by the European Union more than twenty years ago has now had a very positive knock-on impact for the family of a Loughmacrory player whose appearance in this Sunday’s County Final will make history no matter what the result. In 2004, ten countries joined the EU. Over the coming years, people […]
By Niall Gartland SUNDAY represents a sixth Tyrone Senior Championship final appearance for Mattie Donnelly. The 2015 final is regularly cited as the start of the journey for this Trillick team – that momentous October day against Killyclogher where they once again got their hands on the O’Neill Cup after a 19-year wait. When interviewed after the game, team […]
