Derrymen focused on minding their house

It was the essence of sporting contrasts, Paddy Crozier trying to explain what went right, and Mickey Harte trying to explain what went wrong. The Derry manager definitely had the easy job, but also the difficult task of playing down the hype entailed in beating the reigning All-Ireland champions in their first game of the summer.

"We knew coming in here that we'd have to play right from the very start," said Crozier. "You just can't let a team like Tyrone get five or six points ahead of you. So we dug in deep from the very start, and thankfully, that worked out right.

"I wouldn't say we tried to outpsyche them in any way. We just set out to work very hard. You have to do that coming into Omagh. Whether that got under their skins or not I don't know."

Derry meet the winners of Donegal and Down - who play next weekend - and after this win expectations will have significantly risen.

"Well, we set out at the start of the year to stay in division one football and win one game in the Ulster championship," added Crozier. "And that's all we've done today.

"In fairness to Tyrone, they hit a lot of wides out there. We just played hard for the first 35 minutes, which we like to do, and looked after our own house."

Captain Johnny McBride backed up that point - that Derry were focused on their own game, not the one Tyrone might offer.

"They had their injury problems, we knew that, but at the same time we were missing players of out own - Seán Marty Lockhart, Paul Carton and Patsy Bradley.

"Whenever you're playing the All-Ireland champions you can't afford to think like that. We just went out to play as a team. It's just one win though, one result. We'll sit down on Tuesday or Wednesday and reflect a little more on this, but we won't be getting carried away."

Harte, meanwhile, has the difficult of raising his team again for the qualifiers. He wasn't about to list off his excuses - except maybe having to play the best part of the game with 14 men.

"It's hard enough to win any Ulster championship match when you have the full 15. Especially in the modern game.

"Maybe in the past you might be able to handle it better and work with it, but the modern players are a little smarter and know how to hold on to the ball better, and don't give the ball away when they have the extra man. It made their task of holding on to possession a lot easier, and that's essentially what happened today.

"I didn't see the incident, but if the officials decide it's a red card you can't argue. It's history anyway."

What did go wrong then?

"I don't know. The players tried very hard, and worked very hard, so I can't just say they were flat. They met a particular kind of barrier, and that was effective today, but they'll have to learn from that. And hopefully we'll be able to cope with that better if it happens on another day.

"Of course we didn't plan not to score in the first half. But we did create some chances, like 10 chances I think, and didn't convert any of them.

"We have to live with that now, but if we'd converted even half of them it could have been a very different game.

"Even days when you have Stephen O'Neill and Peter Canavan around you still miss those chances. It just didn't happen for us today. I certainly can't blame it on today's players. They tried and fought hard, but we're second best today, and we'll have to accept that."