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BBC News
11-07-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Tyrone vs Kerry classics - Canavan inspires '05 triumph
With Tyrone and Kerry braced to write the latest chapter of an intense and storied rivalry in Saturday's All-Ireland SFC semi-final, here's a look back at the 2005 final, which the Red Hands won 1-16 to regaining the All-Ireland title in 2004, Kerry faced up to Tyrone again in the 2005 decider but once again the Red Hands proved too good as Peter Canavan's classy finish for his first-half goal ultimately proved the difference between the O Cinneide's early goal helped the Kingdom lead 1-2 to 0-2 but Mickey Harte's side dominated the second quarter with Canavan's precise low strike past Diarmuid Murphy after an Owen Mulligan pass contributing to the Red Hands' 1-8 to 1-5 half-time lead.A couple of Stephen O'Neill points kept Tyrone in control despite Kerry's best efforts and, while Tomas O Se did blast in a second Kingdom goal in the 56th minute to cut the margin to one, scores from Canavan, O'Neill, Brian McGuigan and Philip Jordan helped the Red Hands close the game notching his first-half goal, Canavan was substituted but the Errigal Ciaran star was introduced again during the closing stages of the second half in what proved his final inter-county appearance before his clinched the title after a remarkable 10-game campaign which saw them requiring replays against Cavan and Armagh in the Ulster semi-final and final, with the Orchard men winning the provincial title, and then having two contests against Dublin in the published in June 2023
Yahoo
10-07-2025
- Sport
- Yahoo
Tyrone vs Kerry classics - Red Hands win '03 semi-final
With Tyrone and Kerry braced to write the latest chapter in an intense and storied rivalry in Saturday's All-Ireland SFC semi-final, here's a look back at the 2003 All-Ireland semi-final, which the Red Hands won 0-13 to 0-6. A year after squandering a half-time lead to lose the All-Ireland Final against Armagh, the Kingdom were to endure an even more chastening afternoon as the Red Hands dominated the 2003 All-Ireland semi-final from the start despite losing talisman Peter Canavan to injury early on. Advertisement Tyrone's insatiable desire saw them hit the opening six points and the lead was 0-9 to 0-2 at half-time as the Kingdom had no match for the Red Hands' running game and ferocity in the tackle. One lengthy sequence of play in the first half saw Kerry's firstly Dara O Cinneide and then Eoin Brosnan, while in their own half, become surrounded by a posse of Tyrone players as they fruitlessly attempted to gain ground with ball in hand. A furious Pat Spillane delivered his verdict to the TV audience afterwards but there had been no doubting Tyrone's superiority on a day when Paidi O Se's side had no answer to the game plan devised by Mickey Harte. Originally published in June 2023
BBC News
10-07-2025
- Sport
- BBC News
Tyrone vs Kerry classics - Red Hands win '03 semi-final
With Tyrone and Kerry braced to write the latest chapter in an intense and storied rivalry in Saturday's All-Ireland SFC semi-final, here's a look back at the 2003 All-Ireland semi-final, which the Red Hands won 0-13 to 0-6.A year after squandering a half-time lead to lose the All-Ireland Final against Armagh, the Kingdom were to endure an even more chastening afternoon as the Red Hands dominated the 2003 All-Ireland semi-final from the start despite losing talisman Peter Canavan to injury early insatiable desire saw them hit the opening six points and the lead was 0-9 to 0-2 at half-time as the Kingdom had no match for the Red Hands' running game and ferocity in the lengthy sequence of play in the first half saw Kerry's firstly Dara O Cinneide and then Eoin Brosnan, while in their own half, become surrounded by a posse of Tyrone players as they fruitlessly attempted to gain ground with ball in hand.A furious Pat Spillane delivered his verdict to the TV audience afterwards but there had been no doubting Tyrone's superiority on a day when Paidi O Se's side had no answer to the game plan devised by Mickey published in June 2023
The 42
28-06-2025
- Sport
- The 42
'We were blown away': How the Dubs discovered their hard edge through Tyrone battles
IF TYRONE WERE looking to get up the noses of Dublin, then they did it as fast as they could. Acting the maggot, mind-games, scampish behaviour or shit-housery, call it what you want. Tyrone didn't mind. They didn't care. On their very first championship meeting, the All-Ireland semi-final of 1984, Tyrone emerged from the Croke Park dressing rooms first. As they posed for the team photograph, three seated figures on the left side, Sean Donnelly, Noel McGinn and John Lynch's knees were jumping up and down, mad for action. They went straight for Hill 16 to do their warm-up. Four minutes later, Dublin emerged. No team picture. Straight down to the Hill. Booing and jeering everywhere. 'Dublin seem to be trying to evict the Tyrone men from the goal down on the left,' said Miceál O'Hehir in his commentary. Dublin fans unfurled a banner that read, 'TYRONE POWER IS DEAD.' The two teams carried on warming up half-ignoring each other. The Dublin team belatedly went for their picture as scuffles between Dublin fans broke out on the Hill. Gardai came in to sort it out and were chased away with stones and other missiles. Let's call it, 'The Mill On The Hill.' **** Six years later and both teams received an unlikely invitation. The Irish Festival Committee of Toronto, Canada, wanted a headline act. They thought they might invite Cork and Mayo to reprise their All-Ireland final some seven months previous. But the two had actually agreed to play a friendly that weekend in Griffin Park, the then home of Brentford AFC. So the Toronto crowd went for the beaten semi-finalists: Tyrone and Dublin. Tyrone manager Art McRory knew of the 18-year-old Peter Canavan, who had yet to play a dozen games of senior football. He brought him along for the experience. At the start of the second half, some hardchaw had seen enough of this young upstart. Canavan was laid out with a punch to the throat. The Toronto Skydome was spectacularly ill-suited to host a game of Gaelic football. The surface was like polished concrete. The O'Neills football hopped around like a ping-pong ball. Players wore big spongy tennis shoes as well as pads for their knees and elbows. At one point, Sean Donnelly took a swing of his boot at Ciaran Duff. He missed him. Undeterred, he took another one and caught him flush. Referee Miceál Greenan of Cavan felt the whole thing was an impossible task. Later, as the green beer flowed and the teams drank together, Duff and Donnelly got on famously, even rolling up Duff's jeans to get a picture of Donnelly pointing at the point of contact. **** The 1995 All-Ireland final left a scar that's still visible on Tyrone. Defeat was one thing. To be defeated and feel that referee Paddy Russell unfairly punished Peter Canavan for touching the ball on the ground as he teed Seanie McLaughlin up for a potential equaliser left them seething. Advertisement Peter Canavan. © Tom Honan / INPHO © Tom Honan / INPHO / INPHO Then there was the Charlie Redmond business. Russell had yellow carded him twice but he didn't leave the field for some time. The following morning, an RTÉ phone-in had Tyrone midfielder Feargal Logan calling in to tell people to lay off Redmond. Only, it wasn't Logan at all. Shithousery. Soon after that defeat, a number of Tyrone Gaels came together and decided to put a bit of strategy into the undoubted passion that existed in the county. They formed the beginnings of what would become Club Tyrone, the body behind the fundraising that delivered the Garvaghey training centre. At underage, Mickey Harte was the minor manager. He was struggling. Worse was to come the following season as he lost his first-round Ulster match to Fermanagh in Omagh. He persisted. There were some good young lads coming through with names like McGuigan, McGinley, O'Neill, Mulligan, McAnallen, Hughes. You'd never know. **** The next time they met, all had changed. Utterly. Tyrone were All-Ireland champions. The manager was a conservative figure, presiding over a band of punk pirates. Dublin were, for many, figures of fun. Under Tommy Carr and Tommy Lyons they we in their peak arse-boxing banter era. When Paul 'Pillar' Caffrey graduated from selector under Lyons to becoming the manager, Tyrone were the benchmark. But before they could present their front garden to the Tidy Towns Committee, they had to sort out the backyard. 'My mindset, and I had fed it back down into the team, was that we had slipped well back in Leinster,' says Caffrey now. 'We had won one Leinster title in nine years so we very much said, 'Lads, to give ourselves a chance of knocking on the door of an All-Ireland, we need to validate our position as the number one team in Leinster.' Since 1995, Dublin had only won their province in 2002. Dublin scraped one in 2005. They were about to take off Mossy Quinn in the final against Laois before the late Davy Billings convinced Pillar he should keep on the Vincent's man in the event of a late '45. Lo, it happened. Mossy nailed it. Champions. 'In year one, we were very content. We had won Leinster and the bonus was that we were going to have a crack at it. We didn't feel we could stare these teams in the face, but we had to start winning Leinster titles with a bit of credibility, so we could challenge for an All-Ireland. Mickey Harte with Paul Caffrey. INPHO INPHO 'It was slightly different. We weren't brazen enough to think we could win an All-Ireland back then.' Tyrone was a test. 'We were a very nice team. We had a lot of very talented footballers. But we didn't have an edge to us,' he says. 'So we met Tyrone and we saw the hard edge they had. We were blown away by that. We weren't at the races physically with them. We had to evolve and get learning and get a bit of analysis about us to see if we could survive in the arena against Tyrone. 'There would have been an element of verbals there and whatever you could get away with. We learned from Tyrone and felt we knew where we had to get to, to contest an All-Ireland.' He adds: 'We needed to start working on it and it's natural for some fellas. We talked about it. We coached it. And some guys were uncomfortable with going into the dark arts, a bit of sledging, off the ball stuff, physicality or whatever. 'Some guys just want to go out and play ball, and that's fine. But to match Tyrone, we had to learn quickly and grow up a little bit.' What of Tyrone and their thoughts of Dublin? As a player, Mickey Harte had never played them. Not once. The club fallout with St Ciaran's Ballygawley in 1982 left him in exile for '84. But he had his thoughts. 'There was a fight in them always. I think it was just after we won the All-Ireland we had them in a league match in Parnell Park and they laid into us in some tune. Brian Dooher might have had his chin split that day,' recalls Harte. 'It was heavy duty stuff really and we had more of that up in Omagh a few years later in the so-called 'Battle of Omagh.' Which I think was much exaggerated really. 'The biggest damage was done that day was a jersey ripped down the middle. I don't think there were any serious blows struck in the melee, but the media highlighted it. 'But we always felt we could beat Dublin. They were a force alright, and they probably missed the boat a few times. They had a decent team at the time. 'What I liked about them was that they were battlers, number one, they never made life easy for you. And I felt the crowd were good; they would get behind them to the hilt. But when they couldn't get the better of us they were very honourable.' Back to the Battle of Omagh. Tyrone got the better of Dublin in that two-game series in 2005. They went on to win their second All-Ireland. Going up to Omagh was to be a test of their manhood. Not an inch. Not even a fraction; that was the message. Alan Brogan went after the Tyrone team doctor, Dr Seamus Cassidy. It all kicked off. Alan Brogan gets involved. Morgan Treacy / INPHO Morgan Treacy / INPHO / INPHO 'We had felt we weren't taking our lessons on board here and we needed to lay down a marker. If we were to have an ambition of winning an All-Ireland, we had to back it up. We needed to win back-to-back Leinsters and to meet these guys further down the line, we needed to have a little bit more about us,' reasons Caffrey. 'That day, we felt there would be some spark at some stage. We spoke about it in the build-up. We told them how we wanted them to conduct themselves; we didn't want mass sendings off, but we certainly wanted to show intent that we weren't leaving players isolated, we weren't allowing players get picked on. 'And whatever happens, happens.' It was coached, it was fed to the players. He doesn't shy away from that. I'd be lying if I said there wasn't an intent on our part. There was a hard-nosed attitude from us that day. Management laid it down to players and players accepted it that, look, 'this is the first challenge in the lessons of '05. Are we going to take it on a bit, or are we going to be just a nice team?' 'Obviously, the scenes weren't pretty! Privately, I would have been nice and content getting back on that team bus. I'd seen something different in our guys. We were going to partake of the learnings and maybe we can become a hard-nose outfit and it can take us somewhere.' The outrage was everywhere and subject to radio phone-ins and blanket media coverage. But working as a Guard, Pillar had seen a few hairy moments in his time. This wasn't one. Not really. 'A lot of it was, as we would call it, handbags. But rather than having handbags and us coming off second best, we got involved. 'There was nobody injured with a box or a boot that day. We did show a physical intent to our game that hadn't been there previously. For our boys, it was a little investment in the belly for coming down the road afterwards; 'We stood up for ourselves today.'' While it was Brogan that got the thing going that day, Caffrey always described him as a lover, not a fighter. He could find a few of those around town. 'You take a man like Denis Bastick. You wouldn't describe him as one of the greatest midfielders Dublin ever had. But certainly in that period he became an effective midfielder. 'He became one of those dogs in that when there was business to be looked after, Denis Bastick was going to be in the middle of it, because he was a hardy buck. He became an enforcer and a minder out in the pitch.' A quick anecdote about Bastick. Those times must have left a huge impression on him. Many years later, Dublin and Tyrone were playing a Masters final in Ballina, Co Cavan. Tyrone had a late free coming in. Bastick was sent on before it was taken. With the ball on the way to goal, Bastick struck out and caught a Tyrone player. An instant red card. He lasted around half a second. During the Jim Gavin era, when opposition teams were searching around to level the playing field a little, the influence of Hill 16 was analysed. But even before that, Harte was warning his players about how to treat it. 'You always needed to talk to your players about the Hill. It's a boost to them and the idea is, 'Can you tame them long enough that they don't get the chance to sing?'' asked Harte. 'You need to be at Dublin early, don't let them have a chance to get ahead of you because when that swings into action it is definitely a boost. Related Reads 'What a goal. That is one of the great goals we've seen in Croke Park. Magic, magic Mulligan!' 'Not a new issue' - GPA supports Donegal's frustration at short quarter-final turnaround 'We back you no matter what' - Shane Walsh on backing of Galway team mates 'Even the '05 game we played, the replay, we had a decent lead at half time and they came back at us in the second half. It felt like they were sucking the ball over the bar. Shane Ryan kicked a point from 60 yards and you thought to yourself that the crowd just sucked the ball over the bar! 'They came back at us in that game and I remember turning to Tony Donnelly on the line and remarking the effect the crowd were having on the game. You just felt that was happening. 'You had to break the momentum. Mugsy's (Owen Mulligan) goal silenced them a bit and then he silenced them a bit. The stance said it all!' That was Mulligan's goal in the 2005 replay. The goal in the first game has already been well-documented this week. Typical of Harte, while he acknowledges the individual brilliance of Mulligan, he also points to the role played by others. 'Well see, there was a lot of things in that, that people missed. Ultimately it was about Mugsy. It was an individual act on his behalf to get that goal. 'I have watched this numerous times. It started with a Dublin attack. Brian McGuigan blocked down Alan Brogan. Then it came back to Ricey. To Davy, to Stevie O'Neill who controlled the ball so delicately but never got total control of it. Then it was a toe-poke by Sean Cavanagh. Stevie made the pass then. 'When Mugsy got the ball he was the only man inside the Dublin 50 yard line. But Peter Canavan had just came on before that. Enda McGinley was out around the middle of the field and some way involved in the recovery. 'Him and Peter were running there and that's why Mugsy's dummies were bought so much; there was so much attention on who was coming on the inside. 'Peter's presence going into goals, Enda coming all that way, because of the presence of those two players it gave him the ability to sell those wholesale. It was a great finish and he played with great control when he got the ball. It will be remembered as a great individual goal, but it's also reflective of some brilliant team play.' Then came 2008. Dublin had given Wexford a 23-point hammering in the Leinster final. Tyrone were stumbling through the back-door and fetched up in the quarter-final, headlining the Sunday events. Justin McMahon and Diarmuid Connolly. Billy Stickland / INPHO Billy Stickland / INPHO / INPHO 'Diarmuid Connolly came on the scene, I gave him his debut that year,' says Caffrey. 'I just felt offensively we were going to be a different animal. We probably put in our best performance under me in the Leinster final when we gave Wexford an awful trimming. 'And then we got this pissy wet quarter-final weekend. We were the last game on and Tyrone had come through the backdoor and were hardened. We were the right team for them on the day and had a great goal chance early on in the game and we overplayed it. 'They went up the other end and two goal chances, bang-bang. It was one of those days you feel you are a mile off it. 'For me, I felt we weren't making progress and I had to go before I was asked to go. I had been around that dressing room for seven years, manager for four and that's how it ended for me.' Under Pat Gilroy, Dublin kept adding layer upon layer. In 2010 they were more hard-nosed than Tyrone and got the better of them. In 2011, they retired a fleet of frontline players for Tyrone with a trimming. They've been doing it ever since, most notably their 2018 All-Ireland final win. Still, Tyrone came back to win the All-Ireland in 2021. Dublin succeeded them 12 months later. Both teams are in a different place now. Maddening inconsistency has been the story of their seasons so far. We don't know where either team are, until they face each other on Saturday night. They'll bring the very best and very worst out of each other. Again. And again.
Irish Times
28-06-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
Paddy Christie on Owen Mulligan's memorable 2005 goal: ‘To this day I would say it was great play... it changed everything'
Paddy Christie has never watched the moment back but he can still see himself on Owen Mulligan's heels, muck spraying up from their studs as they race to meet the incoming ball. Just another battle for possession. But eight seconds later Mulligan would score what many believe is the greatest Croke Park goal of all time. There are plenty of contenders for that accolade and parochial subjectivity tends to add a couple of postcodes to the distances shots were struck from, but it is impossible to have a debate on this topic without including Mulligan's double-dummy goal from the 2005 drawn All-Ireland quarter-final against Dublin . The backdrop to that strike was as follows: Dublin led 1-11 to 0-11 with just more than 20 minutes remaining in front of 78,514 spectators. Mulligan had not been enjoying a stellar season, he didn't start the drawn Ulster final or replay and was subsequently taken off in Tyrone's qualifier win over Monaghan having managed a single point. Moments before his quarter-final goal against Dublin it appeared Mulligan was to get the curly finger again as Peter Canavan prepared to enter the fray. However, a brief chat between Canavan and Mickey Harte purportedly altered the details of the switch. What followed changed Mulligan's season and arguably changed the course of Tyrone GAA history. READ MORE Here is the anatomy of that goal: 48 mins 12 secs: Canavan is introduced, replacing Ryan Mellon. 48 mins 33 secs: Dublin have possession at the Hill 16 end but Alan Brogan is swallowed up just outside the D and his shot is blocked. Ryan McMenamin secures the loose ball, works it out wide to the Cusack Stand side from where a long foot-pass is delivered forward. 48 mins 45 secs: Stephen O'Neill gets out in front of Paul Griffin but the ball skids off the surface just inside the Dublin 65m line, bounces off the Tyrone forward's shin and he fails to gather possession. The ball bobbles back out the field. 48 mins 49 secs: A brief scramble for possession ensues before O'Neill flicks the ball up with his left foot. Standing between the two 65s, he takes a look forward and sends a left-footed pass inside. 48 mins 53 secs: Mulligan races out ahead of Christie, allows the ball to bounce off the turf and it canons back up into his arms. He collects the ball about 35m out and facing away from goal. Mulligan's momentum carries him close to the 45m line by which point he has decelerated sufficiently to turn. Christie slips. It's on. 48 mins 55 secs: Now facing goalwards, Mulligan takes a left-foot solo. Tyrone's Owen Mulligan goes past Stephen O'Shaughnessy of Dublin on his way to scoring a goal in the 2005 quarter-final. Photograph: Tom Honan/Inpho 48 mins 57 secs: Stephen O'Shaughnessy comes out to meet him. Approaching the D, Mulligan holds the ball in his left hand, looks left and feigns as if about to handpass in that direction. O'Shaughnessy buys the ruse. Mulligan immediately switches direction, moving possession over to his right hand and as he darts by the Dublin defender he bounces the ball on the edge of the D. 48 mins 58 secs: He takes another left-foot solo 48 mins 59 secs: As Mulligan approaches the 20m line, Paul Casey – with arms outstretched – takes position to stop his progress. Mulligan looks left again, lets the ball sit in his left hand and draws his right arm back away from his body indicating he is winding up to fist it across the face of goal. Casey buys it and commits to intercepting what turns out to be a phantom pass. Mulligan leans back to his right foot and powers forward. Owen Mulligan on his way to scoring a goal against Dublin in the 2005 All-Ireland quarter final. Photograph: Tom Honan/Inpho 49 mins 00 secs: Mulligan enters the large square. 49 mins 01 secs: He unleashes a thunderous right-footed shot beyond Stephen Cluxton , just before Barry Cahill arrives with a shoulder that knocks Mulligan to the ground but it's too late, the damage is already done. 1-11 apiece. ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦ The game finished in a 1-14 to 1-14 draw. Two weeks later in the replay Mulligan scored another memorable goal, famously celebrating by staring defiantly towards Hill 16. Tyrone won that contest by seven points and progressed to win the All-Ireland. Christie was the Dublin captain in 2005 and picked up Mulligan in the drawn game. A groin injury kept the Ballymun man out of the replay but it had also been a factor in the build-up to the first match, having suffered the problem during the Leinster final. After a frenetic opening passage of play against Tyrone, the matchups settled and Christie found himself keeping Mulligan company. 'Straight away I thought, 'This is going to be a problem now.' Mulligan hadn't been going well but he was a classy player and I wasn't sure how I'd hold up sprinting and turning,' recalls Christie. The pair largely cancelled each other out in the first half, engaging in their own mini battle as the war went on around them. Owen Mulligan against Dublin in the 2005 All-Ireland quarter final. Photograph: Tom Honan/Inpho 'We were sort of hanging out of each other, there was a bit of off the ball stuff but there wasn't really anything major happening. Neither of us were really in the game. 'I was kind of frustrated in one way but relieved in another because early on I'd been fearful I was going to get roasted, carrying an injury and marking Owen Mulligan in Croke Park, that could go badly wrong.' The first half passed without any major hiccups. Dublin led by five at the turnaround and Christie v Mulligan was a stalemate. But in the dressingroom at half-time, members of the Dublin management set-up had a different view of Christie's performance. 'I was told, 'He's destroying you, are you okay out there? You are miles off it.' I was questioning myself then. I'd normally pride myself on being fairly straight when it comes to self-analysis, I'd have an idea if I was going well or not.' Mulligan gathered a couple of balls early in the second half so when O'Neill sent in another pass in the 49th minute, and with the half-time analysis still swishing around in his head, Christie gambled. 'I was adamant that no matter what I'd win the next ball, so I went really hard for a ball I had no entitlement to win. He was in front of me so I tried to get a fist to it but he won the ball, I fell and he was gone,' Christie says. 'I got up and ran after him but I was out of the equation. I just remember seeing the dummy handpasses with the two lads and then the stadium erupting.' Some 13 years later, on the eve of the 2018 All-Ireland final between Dublin and Tyrone, Christie and Mulligan were reunited for a segment on RTÉ's Up for the Match programme. Inevitably, the chat wound its way to 2005. 'I recounted how I'd been told in the dressingroom at half-time that they thought I was struggling. Then Mulligan interjects and says, 'They told me exactly the same thing in our dressingroom at the break, they said I was struggling.'' Owen Mulligan against Dublin in the 2005 All-Ireland quarter final. Photograph: Tom Honan/Inpho Seán Cavanagh watched the move for the goal unfold from near the middle of the field. 'Mugsy always had that show with the wee fist pass, we'd seen it hundreds of times in training but if I'm honest I didn't ever think it was going to work as well as it did on that day,' Cavanagh says. 'What made it extra special was that Mugsy wasn't having the greatest of games that day and I think he was about to be taken out, so to produce what he did in that moment when we needed it so badly was special. 'It just was one of those magical moments in Croke Park. Mugsy obviously enjoyed the big games and the pantomime element of them – the bleached blonde hair made him stand out.' Collie Moran set up Dublin's goal just before half-time, his lung-bursting run opening the Tyrone defence and leading to Mossy Quinn poking home. Tyrone's Owen Mulligan rescues a dog and gives it to referee during the game against Dublin. Photograph: Tom Honan/Inpho Going off the pitch at the break Moran remembers the energy bouncing around the stadium but Mulligan's goal in the second half wrestled everything back in Tyrone's favour. 'You could just see the move building and building,' recalls Moran. 'When he turned Paddy and ran towards the goal the crowd started to get excited, then when he beat Shocko they got louder again, he went by Paul and everybody got out of their seats, he planted the ball to the net and the place went wild. 'That goal changed the momentum of the match, we were lucky to get a draw in the end.' So many variables had to align for that goal to come to fruition. 'Occasionally I wonder if my memories of it are actually from being there on the pitch that day or are they from seeing replays of the goal so often over the years,' adds Moran. 'But there were chances to stop the move developing. The ball got caught under Paul Griffin's legs initially and it just kind of all snowballed from there.' Christie believes had Dublin denied Mulligan a goal in that moment, then the outcome of the match – and consequently the All-Ireland – would have been different. 'To this day I would say it was great play by him, the finish was even better than the dummy handpasses, but as players we should never have sold ourselves,' says Christie. 'I should never have committed myself in the first place, I broke one of my own rules – I went for a ball I should never have challenged for. What was he going to do if I'd just let him get the ball 45m out with me hanging out of him? Not an awful lot. But instead I sold myself and then unfortunately the two lads inside sold themselves. 'I remember afterwards thinking if I had stood him up or if the lads didn't commit perhaps Tyrone might have gone away with a point from the attack and that wouldn't have been a big deal. But the goal changed everything.' Everything.
