Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
MURPHY MAGIC SEES DONEGAL BACK TO BEST
Harte talks to referee after decision leaves him upset
DONEGAL manager Declan Bonner was delighted to see his masterplan unfold at Dr Hyde Park, with Michael Murphy back to his best for the Ulster champions.
The Donegal skipper was unstoppable at times and after his nine-point haul ended Roscommon’s All-ireland semi-final dreams, he will seek to do a similar job on Tyrone in a fortnight’s time.
It has been some time since we’ve seen this level of scoring power from Murphy, but considering he managed to pair his midfield duties along with forays into the full-forward line, maybe we are finally seeing Bonner’s plan for his captain.
All around him his teammates carried a confident strut in their play. Frank Mcglynn swept brilliantly in front of Paul Brennan but also plundered forward as Donegal countered in numbers and at speed.
After a quiet opening half Odhrán Mac Niallais was superb in the second period and ended with four points from play and also rattled the base of Colm Lavin’s post. The only negative was the arm injury suffered by Eoghan Bán Gallagher after 20 minutes.
“We could have done a bit more throughout both halves but overall the lads put a good shift in and the performance was very good. The 15 starters and the six lads off the bench worked really hard,” said Bonner.
“We had a good purple patch and put some good scores on the board as lads like Murphy, Mac Niallais are quality forwards.
“We’re leaving Hyde Park happy, we’ll wait to see what happens in the other game and could set up a nice match in a fortnight against Tyrone.”
Bonner added: “There’s a lot of good footballers there and it’s about getting that balance right. There’s a really good squad and they’re all really pushing it.
“We had some brilliant scores and defensively we were very solid. Maybe in the final third, we could have had more composure.” MICKEY HARTE cried foul to ref David Coldrick over a bit of Dublin gamesmanship in the build-up to Ronan O’neill’s vital free-kick.
Sub O’neill had only just come on and hadn’t touched the ball before stepping up to hit the injury-time free which could have narrowed the gap to one, but it fell wide.
Harte questioned Coldrick, inset – reminding him of what happened in the first-half when Hugh Pat Mcgeary encroached on Dean Rock before his free.
He said: “I made the point to David Coldrick in a very mannerly fashion that I just felt one wee thing that happened in the first-half, when he let them (Dublin) have a retake of a free when one of our players ran across the eye-line of the kicker.
“Yet at the very end there, when Ronan O’neill was taking his kick – which was at a very vital time in the game
– I felt that Kevin Mcmanamon could have shook hands with him on the way past.
“So I just made that point in a pleasant manner to the referee.
“He said he honestly didn’t see it, and if he had seen it he would have done something about it.
“So I have to accept that.” Harte didn’t want to know about moral victories despite pushing Dublin harder than anyone this year.
The Tyrone boss insisted his team felt they could shock the Dubs who were on their first road trip since 2006 in Saturday night’s clash in Omagh.
They didn’t pull off the result of the summer but at least closed the gap on last year’s tame 12-point defeat by the Dubs in the All-ireland semi-final.
“Obviously we’re not happy with the outcome or the result,” said Harte.
“We felt we were capable of winning and we didn’t win it. We’re not happy with ‘oh you pushed them close’ or ‘you ran them close’.
“It wasn’t about that.
“We intended to win so when you don’t, you’re hugely disappointed but it doesn’t knock us out of the Championship.”
Tyrone now face a shoot-out with Donegal on Sunday week for a place in the All-ireland semi-finals.