Kennedy: Big displays are needed to close out campaign

By Barry O’Donnell

TYRONE captain Brian Kennedy hopes that the anticipated league victory over winless Offaly last weekend will provide the platform for a rousing finale to their Division Two campaign.

With the teams deadlocked after half an hour at O’Neill Park, the Derrylaughan midfielder landed a monster two-pointer to give the hosts the edge and it was an advantage they steadily built upon as the second half unfolded.

In the end, 14 players got their names on the scoreboard as Tyrone swept to a 0-28 to 2-13 victory which hands them a bit more of a cushion at the foot of the table.

Accepting that some of the team displays over the past few weeks warranted the criticism aimed in their direction, Kennedy hoped that the side could maintain the winning habit through now to the concluding stages of the league, with two tricky assignments lying in wait against Meath and Cork.

“We know ourselves that the performances haven’t been good enough. That is on us as a team. We have been letting the county down and the manager (Malachy O’Rourke) as well.

“It’s up to us to put the Offaly performance to bed and look forward to the next two weeks and put in hopefully another big performance.”

The nine-point success against the Faithful County shifted Tyrone up to fifth spot in the Division Two table but they are still not in any sort of position to rest on their laurels, and another loss to Meath at Croke Park on Saturday week (March 14th) would thrust them right back into the danger zone again.

For now though, Kennedy was just relieved to get the job done against a battling Offaly side, jointly managed by Mickey Harte.

“It was massive. That was the main aim coming to Dungannon. Whatever way we got the win it didn’t matter. As long as we got the two points on the board that was the big objective and we got that done.”

The team captain agreed that Tyrone looked somewhat hesitant and laboured for much of the first half against Offaly, before they belatedly exerted their superior class on proceedings.

“To be fair to Offaly they controlled the game well in the first half. When they got the ball they played a lot around the ’65’ and dictated the pace.

“We were probably too slow to get out to them and we allowed them to control things. They were getting scores at the end of their slow build-up play which was frustrating.

“We were looking to get moving the ball up the pitch as quick as possible and put the ball over the bar but they wanted to take the sting out of the game.

“I thought in the second half we came out a bit better and got on top. We pressed their kick-outs and got a better foothold in the game.

“We were then able to chip over the easy scores.”

The final scoreline could have looked even more emphatic only for Tyrone’s failure to convert at least one of the four gilt-edged goal scoring opportunities that came their way against Offaly.

Kennedy admitted that while the team weren’t left to rue those misses on this occasion, it was an aspect of their play that would need to be ironed out looking ahead to more significant challenges down the line.

“You’d like to see a few of the go in. We broke through a few times but there was a bit of poor finishing on our end. On another day hopefully they will go in,” added the midfielder.