Play goes pretty much to script

THE WEEKEND’S GAA championship action was a good one for favourites, with outsiders encountering no joy over five matches. The heaviest hitters in action were reigning Ulster champions Tyrone, who travelled to Casement Park to take on a fast-rising Antrim team, who they defeated in last year’s provincial final.

It turned out to be not dissimilar to that match, with the 2008 All-Ireland champions getting off to a good start and keeping the home side at arm’s length for the rest of the afternoon.

Two first-half goals, the first expertly taken on the ground by centrefielder Kevin Hughes and the second a gem from the Owen Mulligan collection, gave the champions the whip hand. Although Antrim responded after half-time and cut the margin with a Kevin Niblock goal, Tyrone finished four-point winners, 2-14 to 1-13.

“Perhaps it was good for us,” said manager Mickey Harte afterwards, “to have to live with a tough challenge and still survive and we did that, although we actually lost the second half on the scoreboard and we have to do something about that.

“Owen Mulligan can always pull out something special and that’s why he’s the player that he is. That’s why he has done these things over the years and I’m delighted to see him crack another goal like that because you know that he’s capable of doing it any given day and maybe he should have more of them.”

In Portlaoise, Meath were comfortable winners over Offaly, who lost centrefielder John Coughlan to a straight red card just after half-time. Having been clinging on until then, courtesy of two terrific goal assists from Niall McNamee, their prospects all but evaporated but the winners showed some good, clinical finishing to win by 10 points, 1-20 to 2-7.

“We put scores on the board most times we got chances,” said a pleased Eamon O’Brien about his team’s success when asked could they not have pillaged a few more goals.

“I saw us in the league against opposition that we should have been beating going for goals and ending up losing by a point or two. If we had actually got our score we would have remained in the game right till the end instead of looking for a goal. I think it was important to keep the score ticking over.”

Offaly manager Tom Cribbin said his team’s game plan had been rendered obsolete by the dismissal of Coughlan. “We knew we could score if we got the ball in quick enough. The only other option was to throw back more defenders because one on one, they’re quality forwards but that wasn’t a game we wanted to play. We wanted to play to our strengths in the full-forward line and it was working well enough for us when we had three big men in the middle until the sending off.”

Otherwise it was a big afternoon for Waterford footballers, who added to their spring-time promotion out of Division Four of the NFL by securing only their second Munster championship win in 22 years. They had to come from behind against Clare in Dungarvan, the critical goal in a 1-10 to 0-9 victory scored by Gary Hurney, a member of the county hurling panel until recently.

Louth footballers also clocked up a positive result, surviving a Longford fightback before emerging 1-11 to 1-7 winners.