All-Ireland SFC preliminary quarter-final
Tyrone v Roscommon (Saturday, O’Neills Healy Park, 5pm, live on GAAGO)
OF the three teams that Tyrone could have been drawn against in the All-Ireland preliminary quarter-final, Roscommon are undoubtedly the one name that most Red Hand supporters wanted to see coming out of the hat.
The other options were Derry and Monaghan and while Tyrone wouldn’t have feared either of those sides, especially on home turf, avoiding another Ulster derby is probably the ideal scenario for Brian Dooher and Fergal Logan’s men.
They’ve put together two back-to-back championship victories for the first time since 2021 when they landed the Sam Maguire Cup and now can start to build some momentum, with the golden ticket of getting back to Croke Park just one win away.
Roscommon haven’t reached the last eight of the All-Ireland series since 2017 and they’ve been fairly inconsistent this season, despite receiving plenty of plaudits for their performance against Dublin in the first round of the group stages.
They still lost by 12-points in the end before suffering a two-point defeat to Connacht rivals Mayo. In fact, their six-point win over Cavan last weekend was the first victory Davy Burke’s team have tasted since round four of the league, which was back in late February.
Roscommon suffered five defeats across their Division One league campaign, including a first-round loss to Tyrone, at Healy Park, in addition to their three championship losses to Mayo (twice) and Dublin.
Tyrone are the clear favourites for this one but will have to do it without towering midfielder Conn Kilpatrick, who’s red card against Cork keeps him sidelined, meaning stalwart Peter Harte earns a call up to the starting team for the very first time this season.
Kilpatrick could have been the man to shadow Enda Smith, who kicked 1-1 against Cavan, and blotting him out of the game is half the battle when it comes to beating Roscommon, but that role will likely fall to Brian Kennedy.
In terms of match ups, Padraig Hampsey looks tailormade for Conor Cox on the edge of the square while Michael McKernan will likely move out to the half back line to pick up Rossie playmaker Diarmuid Murtagh.
That should free up Mattie Donnelly to play his usual sweeper position and the Trillick man will mainly focus on halting the Roscommon goal threat as they rattled off three majors against Cavan the last day out.
Donnelly has a licence to push further up the field as well of course, which is something that the whole Tyrone defence take advantage of, including goalkeeper Niall Morgan, who is experiencing an exceptional season so far.
While Tyrone lost the first round of the group stages to Ulster champions Donegal, the Red Hands haven’t conceded a goal right throughout the round robin series, while raising four green flags in that time themselves.
Of those four majors, three have come from defenders with Niall Devlin kicking 2-2 from corner back against Clare while wing back Ben Cullen slotted home the all-important three-pointer against the Rebels.
Darragh Canavan and Darren McCurry remain the go-to men in the Tyrone attack while Ruairi Canavan’s switch to centre half forward last week has helped to free up the younger of the two Canavan siblings.
Those three contributed 0-10 of Tyrone’s 1-18 against Cork and Roscommon, with the exception of Brian Stack, could struggle to find man-markers to tie down all three of the Tyrone dangermen.
Everything points to a home victory and while Tyrone’s All-Ireland credentials have yet to be proven, they can still produce the goods on their day and if they play to their potential, then they should qualify for the last eight.