Grandeur missing but enmity stays

Football / McKenna Cup Final / Tyrone 0-13 Armagh 0-11: Sunshine, crowds and Armagh up against Tyrone. Even in the prosaic environment of the McKenna Cup Ulster's big two can make an occasion of it.

Any more of this and the Ulster Council will be looking for Croke Park for the final.

But perishing weather, scrappy football and an array of strangely numbered shirts bore witness to the fact this wasn't the championship but actually the end of January.

One familiar aspect of the afternoon was the narrow margin on the scoreboard at the final whistle.

Pre-season sluggishness meant that the grandeur of these conflicts was missing but not the fractiousness. Referee Mick McGrath was flashing cards like a Las Vegas dealer and by the end, 11 players had been shown a yellow and the only wonder was that no one managed a repeat offence.

Experimentation takes two forms at this stage of the year: the introduction of new players and the redeployment of more experienced performers.

Yet the major contributions were from recognisable names. Seán Cavanagh and Stephen O'Neill contributed nine of Tyrone's total while Steven McDonnell ran up six for Armagh despite not enjoying a vintage afternoon.

None of the newer names made spectacular use of the opportunity and some of more promising players had a frustrating time of it. Armagh's Gareth Swift and replacement Paul Keenan have been in good form in recent weeks but didn't manage to get on the scoresheet.

Swift had an at times interesting tussle with Conor Gormley but couldn't break through. Keenan's run of scoring ended with a couple of wides.

Too often McDonnell was the only option Armagh tried and at times even he was playing mystifyingly deep.

Stephen Kernan finished well and racked up three points but overall, Armagh lacked even seasonally adjusted menace.

The gambit of trying Kieran McGeeney at centrefield will probably get further time but he not unnaturally looked more comfortable dropping back than playing a conventional central role.

For the All-Ireland champions there was the satisfying return of two big names who had sat out last season's memorable campaign. Kevin Hughes has just returned from Australia and came on at half-time, acquitting himself well and driving through for a point.

Ger Cavlan is back a little longer and he looked in fine fettle. In the 53rd minute he curled a ball over the bar from tight on the right touchline and in general play was busy and looked the better for his 12-month break.

Eoin Bradley isn't strictly speaking a new face but neither was he a central figure in last year's cavalcade and he could be happy with a snappy, aggressive performance at corner back.

The match took off at a break-neck scoring pace but it didn't take long for a more restrained metabolism to take hold of the match. At 0-4 to 0-3 in the 20th minute, the match was nicely balanced but Tyrone pulled away with a string of frees from O'Neill and Cavanagh (who had a flawless afternoon from placed balls).

Even at that stage the match looked like slipping into an uncharacteristically one-sided affair and all the more so given that McDonnell had been on the end of a scoring chance which he lashed off the bar - not an easy angle but he has been known to make more from less - and Gormley blocked Swift's attempt off the rebound.

At 0-8 to 0-4 at the break, the match was running strongly in Tyrone's favour and even when Armagh put on a burst to halve the deficit to three, 0-8 to 0-11, more Cavanagh frees widened the gap once more.

Stephen Kernan and McDonnell did knock off a closing three-point sequence to reduce the margin to two and there was an occasional frisson during the final attacks but after four minutes of injury-time that was as close as the Ulster champions got to their perennial rivals.

TYRONE: J Devine; R McMenamin, C Gormley, E Bradley; B Donnelly, C Gourley, D Harte; B Meenan, S Cavanagh (0-5, frees); R Mulgrew, G Cavlan (0-2), T McGuigan (0-1); M Penrose, S O'Neill (0-4, three frees), R Mellon. Subs: K Hughes (0-1) for Mulgrew (half-time), C Donnelly for McGuigan (46 mins), A Ball for B Donnelly (63 mins), D Carlin for McMenamin (70 mins).

ARMAGH: C McKinney; P Duffy, F Bellew, E McNulty; A Kernan, C McKeever, A Mallon; K McGeeney, J McEntee (0-1); P McKeever (0-1, free), S Kernan (0-3), L O'Hare; S McDonnell (0-6, one free), G Swift, T McEntee. Subs: P Keenan for O'Hare (33 mins), P Loughran for P McKeever (47 mins), M O'Rourke for Swift (58 mins), JP Donnelly for McNulty (68 mins).

Referee: M McGrath (Donegal).