Tyrone pillars come tumbling down

Gaelic Games: In what was its last game of the season, the atmospheric old football theatre at Clones hosted a game that has altered the championship landscape. Deserted for the final on which it has annual claim, Clones treated everybody to an old-fashioned Ulster classic yesterday.

It was not so much a game that Tyrone, the All-Ireland champions, lost here, as the veneer of invincibility. Donegal swept the All-Ireland champions from the Ulster stage by 1-11 to 0-9 in a manner that nobody saw coming.

It was as if Brian McEniff knocked at the front door and the entire red and white facade collapsed. We looked for the pillars of Tyrone football yesterday but they simply were not there.

"I remember coming here in 1993 as All-Ireland champions and we fell to Derry," reminisced the Bundoran man afterwards. "So I know how it feels for Tyrone here today. I suppose it is All-Ireland syndrome really."

McEniff was born for days like this. His team came up the road from Donegal town as outsiders and left leaving everybody slightly dazed by what they had achieved.

Stronger and less wide-eyed from last year, they forced Tyrone to absorb a physical confrontation for half an hour. It cost them a defender when Niall McCready was sent-off after getting suckered into confronting Tyrone's blond danger man Eoin Mulligan.

But no matter. They played as if liberated in the second half. Colm McFadden was the brightest of a cast of fresh names. The St Michael's man scored 1-7 yesterday.

Tyrone looked hollowed out. Like many great champions, they hit some kind of wall only they can see.

The bounce was gone from Brian Dooher and the elegant Seán Cavanagh was swamped by streams of high-flying Donegal men.

There was no return from Peter Canavan. Mickey Harte handled this loss with his customary class but he had no answers.

"As the game went on, Donegal just got stronger and we were chasing shadows," he said in the gentle tone of a man who had known this day was coming.

Seán Moran adds from Croke Park: Leinster champions Laois are back in the provincial final and set fair to retain their title judging by yesterday's emphatic dismissal of Meath. A storming second-half display left Seán Boylan's team for dead and established the team's credentials for further honours.

Their manager Mick O'Dywer, in his sixth decade at the top of the inter-county game, is asked whether he still enjoys it all. His exuberance is an answer in itself.

"As much as ever. Just coming up today I said to myself, 'Jesus, isn't it great to be going back into Croke Park?'. I enjoy coming here. I often wonder what do people mean by pressure. I get so involved I'm nearly playing every ball."

The match was settled by an explosive goal from Colm Parkinson and copperfastened by a couple of great saves by current All Star goalkeeper Fergal Byron. The champions go on now to face the winners of next week's novel semi-final between Wexford and Westmeath on July 18th.

Westmeath had bad news at the weekend with the rejection of Rory O'Connell's appeal to the Management Committee to have his 12-week suspension reduced. He will now miss the rest of the season unless the county can reach an All-Ireland semi-final.