Kildare the nearly men once again as Tyrone hold on

Tyrone 2-7 Kildare 0-12

Hardy boys only in Omagh. On a day you wouldn’t let the cat out the door, Tyrone dogged this one out. For one reason or another, they were down nine players from their All-Ireland final 26. They were playing on a bog. They were behind for three-quarters of the game. In every way possible, they had to dig deep.

If you were here when you could have been anywhere indoors, your loved ones need to stage an intervention. The weather dictated the afternoon to a comical degree. At one stage in the first half, the clouds darkened to a deep purple and the floodlights had to be hastily cranked into action. Not five minutes later, the gale-force winds had whooshed the clouds over towards Armagh and we had the sunniest floodlit game you ever did see. Soon after, there was a hail shower that ought to have had the skies arrested for GBH.

Through it all, Kildare showed enough to convince themselves they belong in Division One, even if the table may well ultimately take a different view. They have now played the All-Ireland champions from last year and the favourites for this year’s title and given every bit as good as they’ve got on both occasions.

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Yet they didn’t beat Kerry first day out and they lost here despite being in control for most of the way. Division Two lets you think you might have something special going on. Division One tells you to your face exactly who you are.

“The thing about league football is that you earn the right to be in the position you’re in,” said Glenn Ryan afterwards. “These fellas have earned that right. They have put themselves in the position of being up in Division One. And our intention is to keep producing performance and to get results.

“We know it’s not good enough to say that we are competitive because we need to be winning. Particularly when we’re good enough to win. When you’re good enough to win, you beat yourself up for losing. And we’ll beat ourselves up on the way home on the bus now and we’ll be ready to go for the next night.”

Given the conditions, it’s hard to be too down on the quality of Kildare’s shooting yet it was undeniably what cost them the game. They kicked seven wides in the first half when they were by a distance the better side. It meant that the biggest lead they were able to build was only four points, which was a miserable enough reward for their efforts.

Because make no mistake, they were far superior to the home side in the opening skirmishes. In the first 12 minutes, Daniel Flynn had one of those spell where he looks like the most unplayable footballer in the country. Kildare had six points on the board by that stage - Flynn had scored two of them himself and laid on the final pass for another three. His side were 0-6 to 0-2 ahead at that stage and comfortable with it.

But the misses piled up from there to the break. Flynn made a hames of a close in mark, Jimmy Hyland tried to kick a free off his wrong foot, Ben McCormack dropped a speculative effort short. Tyrone stayed in touch through placed balls mostly, although Darragh Canavan could have had a hat-trick had he been as clinical with his finishing as he was mercurial in his approach play.

Kildare went to the break 0-8 to 0-4 ahead. Almost immediately, they paid the price for their first half waste, when Conn Kilpatrick banged home the first Tyrone goal after more quicksilver work from Canavan. To their credit, Kildare drove on again, with fine scores from Paddy Woodgate and goalie Mark Donnellan keeping them in front.

But it was Darren McCurry who delivered the kill shot with Tyrone’s second goal, 58 minutes in. It was mostly Conor Meyler’s doing, the Tyrone wing-back bounding out of defence and playing a couple of one-twos on his way up the pitch before putting the All Star corner-forward away.

Kildare came back and could even have won it when Flynn got through on goal at the end. But his shot blazed over and Tyrone were out the gap.

“The goals were game-changers for us,” said Brian Dooher afterwards. “We could have had more but we could have conceded one or two. We’re just glad to get out of here, there are a lot of learnings to take from it. We’re not the finished article, we have a lot of work to do before we meet Donegal. At least we are in a better place.”

Tyrone: Niall Morgan (0-1, 45); Cormac Monroe, Rory Brennan, Frank Burns; Niall Sludden, Johnny Monroe, Conor Meyler; Pádraig McNulty, Conn Kilpatrick (1-0); Darragh Canavan, Conor McKenna, Nathan Donnelly; Darren McCurry (1-3, 0-1 free), Brian Kennedy, Paul Donaghy (0-2, 0-1 frees).

Subs: Richie Donnelly (0-1) for McNulty (44 mins), Cathal McShane for McKenna (54 mins), Ben McDonnell for Donaghy (60 mins), Liam Rafferty for Kilpatrick (69 mins).

Kildare: Mark Donnellan (0-2, 0-1 45, 0-1 free); Mick O’Grady, Shea Ryan, Ryan Houlihan; Tony Archbold, James Murray, Darragh Ryan; Aaron Masterson, Kevin Flynn; Con Kavanagh, Ben McCormack, Paul Cribbin (0-2); Paddy Woodgate (0-2, 0-1 mark), Daniel Flynn (0-3), Jimmy Hyland (0-2).

Subs: Alex Beirne for Kavanagh (50 mins), Fergal Conway for Cribbin (56 mins), Darragh Kirwan (0-1) for McCormack (60 mins), Jack Sargent for Ryan (62 mins), David Hyland for Murray (69 mins).

Referee: Martin McNally (Monaghan)