All-Ireland Masters Football Championship final
Tyrone 4-8 Roscommon 0-9
Tyrone completed a four in a row of All Ireland Masters titles when they proved too strong for Roscommon at Breffni Park in Cavan on Saturday afternoon.
Stephen O’Neill rolled back the years with a man of the match performance at centre half forward with his educated left foot spraying passes all over the field.
In the 18th minute when everybody thought he was going to take a point his disguised pass found Michael Anderson in front of goals and he had the simple task of finding the back of the net.
That was Tyrone’s second goal of the game as former County attacker Mark Donnelly fired home as early as the third minute in his debut season at Masters football.
Barry Daly, Anderson and Damian Kelly all had points and while Sean Fahy and Ger Heneghan replied for Roscommon the Connaught side trailed 2-5 to 0-4 at the break despite having played with the wind at their backs.
Leo Meenan tagged on a couple of points on the restart to keep Tyrone in the driving seat with Fahy and Heneghan responding with further frees. An unbelievable 40-yard pass from O’Neill cut out the entire Roscommon defence to put Meenan in for a goal but his rising shot went over the bar.
O’Neill then landed a beauty from out on the right wing to become the last of Tyrone’s six starting forwards to get on the scoresheet.
Their third goal came from an unlikely source from a man who made his name as a standout defender, team captain Conor Gormley finishing in style to the bottom right hand corner with a finish that any of the great forwards that he played alongside would have been proud of.
Martin Taggart put the icing on the cake with goal number four late on on a day when Tyrone greats O’Neill and Gormley took their combined All Ireland medal haul in a Red Hand jersey to 19.
Tyrone scorers: M Anderson (1-1), C Gormley (1-0), M Donnelly (1-0), M Taggart (1-0), L Meenan (0-3, 0-2 frees), B Daly (0-2, 0-1 frees), D Kelly (0-1), S O’Neill (0-1)
Roscommon scorers: S Fahy (0-4 frees), G Heneghan (0-4, 0-3 frees), R Cox (0-1)