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BBC News
25-05-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
All-Ireland SFC: Saturday's Ulster derby matches as they happened
Update: Date: 21:33 BST 24 May Title: McGee: 'We only have ourselves to blame' Content: FT: Donegal 0-20 Tyrone 2-17 Donegal selector Neil McGee admitted his team was below par in their defeat to Tyrone. Speaking to GAA+, he said: "It could have gone any way, but we weren't really at it from the start. We got caught too many times trying to play the ball over and I don't know what our turnover count was. Tyrone probably deserved it. "It's a long season and you're going to the well every week. You try to get up there, but we just didn't get up to the pitch of it today. "We were two points up after 64, 65 minutes and were on the attack, gave the ball away and Tyrone went up (to score). We didn't touch the ball again after that and that's what it came down to. It's thin margins, but we have only ourselves to blame." Update: Date: 21:27 BST 24 May Title: Tyrone boss O'Rourke delighted with his team's character Content: FT: Donegal 0-20 Tyrone 2-17 Tyrone boss Malachy O'Rourke hailed his side's character in their win over Donegal. Speaking to GAA+ he said: "Probably the charachter the boys showed. We got a good start but at half-time we lost two leaders (Brian Kennedy and Padraig Hampsey) and it could have been a night where we said, 'we've put in a good show but it wasn;t going to be our night'. "The way Donegal came back and we always knew they would as they are a quality team. They went ahead and again, we could have folded up our tents, but the composure the boys showed and willingness to fight for each other, get back ahead and hold it was really pleasing. "It only gets us two points, but it's a good start to the group and we just have to settle down and look towards next week (against Mayo)." Update: Date: 21:05 BST 24 May Title: Post Content: FT: Donegal 0-20 Tyrone 2-17 What a see-saw battle that was. Just as it seemed Donegal were striking for home, Tyrone replied and that Peter Harte two-pointer was a huge score. The Red Hands head home with a massive two points ahead of their home assignment against Mayo next week, while Donegal will now seek to regroup ahead of another Ulster derby when they travel to Cavan. Update: Date: 21:02 BST 24 May Title: Tyrone defeat Donegal Content: Donegal 0-20 Tyrone 2-17 Tyrone get their hands on the kick-out and that is it. The ball is leathered off the pitch as the horn goes and Tyrone grab a huge win in Ballybofey against the Ulstet champions. With that goes Jim McGuinness' record hof having nev er lost a championship game i MacCumhaill Park. Update: Date: 21:00 BST 24 May Title: Post Content: Donegal 0-20 Tyrone 2-17 Cormac Quinn is through and kicks a score to put a goal between them. One last play left. Update: Date: 20:59 BST 24 May Title: Post Content: Donegal 0-20 Tyrone 2-16 Tyrone have their hands on the ball and are seeking to drain the clock. 90 seconds left. Update: Date: 20:57 BST 24 May Title: Harte nails a two! Content: Donegal 0-20 Tyrone 2-16 Peter Harte steps up and thumps over a two-pointer to give Tyrone the lead with three to play. Update: Date: 20:55 BST 24 May Title: Level again Content: Donegal 0-20 Tyrone 2-14 Darragh Canavan ties it up once again from a free. Update: Date: 20:53 BST 24 May Title: Post Content: Donegal 0-20 Tyrone 2-13 Tyrone turn the ball over and counter at pace with Darren McCurry finishing. Update: Date: 20:52 BST 24 May Title: Donegal lead Content: Donegal 0-20 Tyrone 2-12 Donegal hit the front and in superb style as Patrick McBrearty slings over a two-pointer from out on the left. Update: Date: 20:51 BST 24 May Title: Post Content: Donegal 0-18 Tyrone 2-12 It's level again and it's Langan again. He is on fire this evening. Update: Date: 20:50 BST 24 May Title: Substitution Content: Donegal 0-17 Tyrone 2-12 Eoghan Ban Gallagher's return to the field is over for today as he makes way for Odhran Doherty for the last 10 minutes. Update: Date: 20:49 BST 24 May Title: Post Content: Donegal 0-17 Tyrone 2-12 Tyrone stright upfield and Ciaran Daly fists over. 11 to go. Update: Date: 20:48 BST 24 May Title: All square Content: Donegal 0-17 Tyrone 2-11 Michael Langan is having a stormer and he levels it with his sixth point of the game. Update: Date: 20:47 BST 24 May Title: Post Content: Donegal 0-16 Tyrone 2-11 Donegal with 11 wides now but that crossfield wind is causing havoc with the shots. Tyrone have also just made their last switch with Frank Burns in for Rory Brennan. Update: Date: 20:45 BST 24 May Title: Yellow card Content: Donegal 0-16 Tyrone 2-11 Tyrone's Ciaran Daly goes into the book for an off-the-ball challenge. Update: Date: 20:43 BST 24 May Title: Substitution Content: Donegal 0-16 Tyrone 2-11 Malachy O'Rouke makes his fourth change with Eoin McElholm in for Mark Bradley. Update: Date: 20:41 BST 24 May Title: Post Content: Donegal 0-16 Tyrone 2-11 Into the final quarter and those two, two-pointers have Donegal right back in it. This is anybody's game at this stage. Update: Date: 20:40 BST 24 May Title: Post Content: Donegal 0-16 Tyrone 2-11 Michael Langan now hits one from deep and the gap is suddently down to one. Tyrone respond by bringing in Peter Harte to replace Mattie Donnelly. Update: Date: 20:39 BST 24 May Title: Murphy with another two Content: Donegal 0-14 Tyrone 2-11 Donegal really needed that and Michael Murphy steps up again to land his third two-point free of the game.
Irish Times
19-05-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
Passive and structured Mayo look like overthinking it in the new-rules order
The one saving grace for Mayo might be that almost nobody saw their defeat to Cavan on Sunday. It wasn't on RTÉ, it wasn't on GAA+, the official attendance at Castlebar was just 7,387 – a miserable crowd, in every sense of the word. And plenty of them were gone before the final whistle. That's not how it works though. Particularly not in Mayo. Nick Hornby's contention in his classic book Fever Pitch rings 100 per cent true here – listening to your team play on the radio always makes things worse in your imagination than it is in reality. It's one thing Mayo losing to Cavan for the first time since 1948 and for the first time at home. It's another when your people are already predisposed to think the worst anyway. Mayo people will tell anyone who'll listen that this has been coming. The casual observer will point to the fact that they've been in the final of the league and the Connacht Championship this season already. And when the casual observer does so within earshot of the Mayo supporter, the casual observer will be told to get stuffed. Sure they made the league final by accident. Sure they struggled to beat Leitrim in the Connacht semi-final. READ MORE No, whatever about Kevin McStay and his management team's hold over the actual Mayo dressingroom – and to be fair, there has been no suggestion of unrest or unhappiness there – the wider dressingroom within the county has gradually been ebbing away over the past three years. Even allowing for the slightly unglamorous fixture, getting less than 8,000 into MacHale Park for the opening game of the All-Ireland series tells its own story. On specifics, there are a few main problems. For one, at a brass tacks level, Mayo don't score enough. If this was a problem that might not necessarily have been fatal under the old rules, it's going to catch up with you eventually under the new ones. There had to be a limited future in the fact that Mayo finished top of Division One in the league despite being the lowest scorers in it. They got to the Connacht final without kicking a single two-pointer. They tried for eight of them against Galway in Castlebar a fortnight ago but only landed two. There's an old NFL maxim – you're either coaching it or you're allowing it. Whatever work Mayo have done behind closed doors on creating and taking two-point chances, it hasn't translated to the arena. They have played four games in this championship so far and in none of them have they raised more orange flags than the opposition. Only one of those games was against Division One opposition. Which leads neatly on to the second major grumble Mayo people have about their team, that they're altogether too passive and too careful in possession. The contrast between their steady, sensible build-up play on Sunday and the flying support running of Cavan in transition was stark. Aidan O`Shea of Mayo in action against Cavan. Photograph: ©INPHO/James Lawlor Ray Galligan deserves major credit for lighting a fire under his charges after they limped meekly out of Ulster against Tyrone. Funny enough, maybe the only Sam Maguire county whose support base was as down in the mouth about their own prospects as Mayo was Cavan. But they came to Castlebar to play at championship pace, full of direct running and at least some element of risk-taking. Mayo, as has been their way for long stretches this season, were far more methodical and one-paced. For whatever reason, they often look like they haven't fully embraced the new game. For a county that thrived in creating chaos within the suffocating strictures of the old rules, they look hesitant to submit to any form of it now. That needn't be fatal, of course. As the weeks go by, more and more teams are finding ways to keep the ball for longer and longer. Everyone is so conditioned to possession football by now and Mayo don't owe you exciting transitions and glorious kick-passes into the big man on the edge of the square any more than Donegal or Armagh or Louth do. But the thing that made Mayo special over the past decade and a half was always that feeling that when the needle went into the red, they could go to places where other teams would simply wilt. If a game was going a million miles an hour, it was the other crowd who tried to slow it down and gain some measure of control over the whole thing. Now it is Mayo who do that. Which would be fine – if they were winning. McStay and his brains trust look to have decided that all the years of chaos and carnival were ultimately not the answer and that if they are going to reach the top of the mountain, they'll have to do it in a much steadier, more structured manner. It makes some logical sense, certainly. But when you're losing at home in front of a tiny crowd to a lower division team, it smacks of overthinking.
