Tyrone 2-11 Kildare 0-12:LET'S GET the jibes out of the way early here. Ladies and gentlemen, it's the dudes from Cocoon! Owen Mulligan and Stephen O'Neill have been around so long, they must have had Roman numerals on their jerseys when they started out. When the pen pic guys ask for their toughest opponent this summer, the answer will be some combination of the stairs, the damn TV remote and loud music from next door.

Okay, okay, so O’Neill is still only 31 and Mulligan a mere 30. But the pair of them played so much older than everyone else on the pitch on Saturday night. Not the older of creaking hinge joints and heavy boots. Instead, it was the older of craft and sense and above-the-fray acuity. They took a game that Kildare looked to have in a vice-grip at half-time and prised it from them through the simple ploy of scarcely wasting a ball in the second half.

It wasn’t completely a two-man cabaret, as the young centre-back-cum-roving-playmaker Peter Harte strode forward to be the central character in the two goals that turned the scoreboard in their direction. But Tyrone kicked 2-11 on Saturday night and Mulligan and O’Neill either scored or were the chief architects of 2-10 of it.

“We had four goal chances in the end,” reflected Kieran McGeeney afterwards, “and nine kicks dropped short. Overall in footballing terms we were well in it if not more in it than they were. But they got two goal chances and put them away and we got four or five and didn’t hit any of them. They were well-worked and we got in on the goalkeeper but pulled them wide.

“It’s annoying. Before, I’d argue we were scoring well but today we didn’t. I thought we worked some great chances considering how defensively Tyrone play. We moved the ball well inside. But Tyrone were very good.”

A couple of early Stephen O’Neill points had Tyrone 0-2 to 0-0 in front after 15 minutes, whereupon Kildare launched into their best spell of the night and reeled off the next five points in a row.

Mikey Conway and Pádraig O’Neill were looking sharp in front of the posts and every time Tomás O’Connor was involved he was no more than a decent set of shooting boots away from being unmarkable. McGeeney’s side ought to have had a goal on 23 minutes but Pádraig O’Neill cleared the bar with a solid chance and when the sides went in at half-time, they were good value for their 0-6 to 0-3 lead.

But Mulligan and Stephen O’Neill just took over from the beginning of the second half. Every Tyrone attack went through one or other or both of them and they decorated the game with most of the best points of the night – one stunning Johnny Doyle effort into the Hill being the obvious and wholly honourable exception.

Between the pair of them, they engineered the goals that hauled Tyrone into the lead. As the tempo rose soon after the break, Mulligan spotted a Harte run from a quick free and fed him as he sallied right through the heart of the Kildare defence. The loping centre-back drew the cover before flicking a pass across goal for Martin Penrose to palm a subtle finish to the net.

The sides traded points for the next 15 minutes before Tyrone went for the kill-shot. After Stephen O’Neill curved a gorgeous pass around a corner to Mulligan in traffic about 35 yards out from the Kildare goal, the corner-forward took a beat and released an equally exquisite ball into the on-rushing Harte who dived and flicked the ball past Shane Connolly into the net.

A classic Mulligan shimmy-shoot-score effort three minutes later put Tyrone 2-8 to 0-10 ahead. Although Kildare squandered a couple of good goal chances after that, they were never within touching distance.

“People say the standard rises when you go into the league,” said Harte afterwards, “and there is no doubt but that is the case. Again, the old story, one swallow doesn’t make a summer. We could have been beaten there just as handy but we got the breaks at the right time to give us a foothold in the game. But there were periods when we were on the back foot as well so we are no finished product. We are a team in the making again.” With a couple of made men already on board.

TYRONE: P McConnell; A McCrory, C Clarke, PJ Quinn; C McCarron, P Harte (1-0), Seán O’Neill; M Murphy, A Cassidy; Matthew Donnelly, P Hughes, M Penrose (1-0); O Mulligan (0-3, 0-2 frees), Mark Donnelly (0-1), S O’Neill (0-5, 0-2 frees). Subs: D McCaul (0-1) for Quinn (32 mins); R O’Neill (0-1) for Hughes (32 mins); N McKenna for Cassidy (60 mins); S Cavanagh for Penrose (66 mins); R McMenamin for Matthew Donnelly (69 mins).

KILDARE: S Connolly; P Kelly (0-1), C Fitzpatrick, O Lyons; B Flanagan, T O’Neill, E O’Flaherty (0-2, 0-1 45, 0-1 free); D Flynn, R Sweeney; T Moolick, M Conway (0-6, 0-4 frees), P O’Neill (0-2); J Kavanagh, T O’Connor, A Smith. Subs: J Doyle (0-1) for Moolick (20 mins); H McGrillen for Flanagan (41 mins); E Callaghan for Smith (46 mins); M O’Flaherty for Fitzpatrick (50 mins); R Kelly for Flynn (59 mins).

Referee: M Duffy (Sligo).