Bradley enjoying being back in the fold

By Barry O’Donnell

HAVING just returned to the County fold over the off-season, Mark Bradley now finds himself quickly embroiled in a relegation scrap with Tyrone, but despite their mixed results, the star attacker is enjoying being back in the mix.

Now into his early thirties the Killyclogher man was persuaded to don the county jersey again and re-emerge out of retirement by new manager Malachy O’Rourke over the winter, to help spearhead Tyrone’s pursuit of top honours.

His reintroduction injects further firepower into a potent looking Red Hand forward unit, already boosting the likes of Darren McCurry, Eoin McElholm, Mattie Donnelly and the Canavan siblings.

Such a sparkling fusion of attacking talent should excite Tyrone supporters casting a glimpse ahead to the upcoming Championship, and Bradley is thrilled to be back in the thick of it.

“Yes I’m happy to be back and enjoying it. It definitely makes life easier when you are involved.

“You want 30-35 men all pushing for positions, you want everyone competing. You don’t want anyone feeling too comfortable with their place. It all about making progression now as a team.”

The immediate priority for the team of course is staving off the drop, as Tyrone currently occupy one of the relegation berths in the bottom two of the Division One table, with just a couple of league matches remaining to seal their escape.

The first of those is an away trip to high-flying Donegal in Letterkenny on Sunday afternoon, and while it may not be for once the more daunting Tir Conaill county ground in Ballyshannon, Bradley knows that a victory in O’Donnell Park will be hard-earned.

“It’s always a tough place to go to regardless of where the venue is. We know we have loads to work on. Donegal had another good win the last day coming back against Derry.

“But I don’t think we’re looking at the league table and looking at X amount of points to stay up. For us we’re taking it every game at a time, and every day you go out, you want to get two points.

“Of course we want to stay up. Some boys have come in a bit later, the Errigal boys needed a break, they needed a rest after a long club season. But now we have got everyone in, and everyone in the squad is working hard.”

Tyrone come into the weekend on the back of their most encouraging display of the season to date, drawing away to Galway, though in truth they probably warranted taking both points, with Shane Walsh denying them victory with a last gasp two point free.

Bradley admits that the performance should act as a fillip for the side heading into the last two crunch National League fixtures.

“I suppose we knew we had a lot of work to do coming in the week. Our track record in Tuam hadn’t been great either, coming down there, so we just wanted to get off to a good start and lay a bit of a foundation down. I think we improved, but still loads to improve on moving forward.

“To get a performance was what we wanted but it’s just unfortunate we couldn’t hold on for the two points, but still it’s something to build on.”

The whole talking point in football right now of course is the rule changes, with myriad adjustments also taking effect from this weekend, just to add to the confusion. Bradley acknowledges that the alterations in the scoring system, allied to the need to keep three men up at all times in the opposition half, do impact on a forward player’s psyche.

“There’s probably more high speed running and shorter bursts at higher speeds, and you are also aware of the (40m) arc too and maybe positioning to get a shot from outside it.

“But it can be strange at times when you get pinned in (unable to cross the halfway line). You’re maybe just watching the game and you can’t really influence it, you’re just sort of trying to shout and position people. It is slightly different.

“Those boys in the middle eight are working really hard, they’re up and down constantly and they’re not getting much of a break, so I suppose it’s something that teams will be working on, that you maybe get a rest for a while and then someone else does a shift.”

Check out this week’s podcast with Ronan O’Neill and Shaun Casey, looking ahead to this week’s action. The podcast is brought to you in association with Hastings Everglades Hotel