"IT would have destroyed Derry football," was the response of Derry centre back Henry Downey to the spectral notion of defeat in yesterday's match in Clones. Melodramatic it might have sounded, but losing in three successive years to your neighbours isn't a matter for restraint.

Downey, who captained the All Ireland winning side of four years ago, waxed positive on the evolution of a team to succeed the 1993 model.

"Brian Mullins did a lot of experimenting during the league and it paid off," he said. "Our young players proved they're championship material and we're delighted with their performances."

Selector Frank Kearney said that the early concession of a goal hadn't unduly shaken his belief in Derry's ability to win.

"Once we got over that early stage of uncertainty and nervousness and settled to our pattern, I was always confident we were going to win."

Kearney was particularly happy with the performance of the forwards. "They are a potent, potent forward line and let nobody say anything else," he said. "Any of those fellas gets the ball in their hands in the right position and they'll score, in the past, people have said Derry teams don't have scoring forwards. We have scoring forwards I can assure you."

"I was disappointed," said Tyrone manager Danny Ball. "We put in a below par performance in every part of the field and we've no complaints. They've done to us what we did to them last year.

"I thought the three games would have been a help to us coming into this game, but obviously it let Derry sit back and see where our weaknesses were - and they exploited all the weaknesses we had."