Ready to take advantage of second chance

Croke Park was appropriately sunny for Wednesday's media briefing on the autumn tour to Australia. Anthony Tohill the newly-appointed Ireland captain modelled the team's jersey and looked forward to the International Rules series. But a more immediate task awaits him on Sunday at Clones where Derry reprise their Ulster semi-final against Tyrone in the All-Ireland quarter-final.

The match is a pairing neither county will particularly have wanted and maintains the trend set by the qualifier series of Ulster counties being drawn out the hat together.

Matches between the two are generally edgy, claustrophobic affairs. As former Derry All-Ireland winner Joe Brolly said: "Tyrone and Derry supporters don't enjoy these matches. There's a feeling of dread in the pit of your stomach."

If anything, Tyrone, the Ulster champions, are at a disadvantage. Their last match was the provincial final against Cavan, four weeks ago whereas Derry have gradually been playing themselves back into form with three matches since their championship defeat. Tohill is upbeat about the weekend.

"I'm looking forward to it. It's an opportunity to progress to an All-Ireland semi-final. If someone had said that we'd be playing them again after losing the Ulster semi-final, we'd have been happy enough. It was a draw and out of our hands but we're the ones getting a second chance. Beggars can't be choosers."

Would he not have preferred to be having an outing in Croke Park after being confined to Ulster for the summer? "It would be nice. Everyone wants to play here. I wanted to play here ever since I was knee-high and I've always enjoyed playing here. But we have been given a lifeline and we're glad of that wherever it's played. I can understand why Tyrone might be frustrated having to play a team they've already beaten."

He accepts the team's performances have been less than startling although he feels the team "played fairly well against Tyrone" the first day. But at least there has been improvement. The last qualifier against Cavan saw Derry rediscover something of their attacking potential, with a fine goal from Tohill putting the match beyond Cavan from an early stage of the second half.

"Over the first two games against Antrim and Laois we were below par and fortunate to get through them. Things came together against Cavan but there's still room for improvement. The first game is the most difficult because of the traditional view of the championship.

"When you're beaten, your world ends and it's extremely difficult to get back. We were fortunate to be paired with Antrim. No disrespect to them but if we'd got one of the powerhouses of football, we might well have been beaten."

Slowly Derry have recovered and are now in the happy position of being able to make amends for defeat by their great rivals. Tohill played with a broken toe earlier this championship but is now in the best of shape. Although he claims not to care about his personal performance "as long as Derry win", anyone who watches the team knows that the two phenomena are more closely linked than that.