Canavan magic seals glory for Tyrone

Inspired by the son of a legend, Tyrone lifted this inaugural trophy with a dominant display at Croke Park.

Darragh Canavan, son of Peter, smashed home a brilliant second-half goal to halt a Rossies revival, and the Ulster champions sealed it with a stoppage-time strike from Mark Hayes.

Early scores from Peter Gillooly and Ciarán Sugrue gave the Rossies early hope, but a typically well-organised Tyrone side was soon in control, and reeled off nine points without reply to take a firm grip on the contest.

Matthew Murnaghan and Joe Oguz established a midfield platform, while skipper Cormac Munroe performed with assurance at the heart of their defence, with Matthew McCusker another immense figure.

And with Canavan running from deep, picking off points and creating scores for others, they were a potent outfit. Canavan swept over a couple of scores, Ethan Jordan added more from frees, and there were well-worked points for Oguz, Daniel Miller, Tarlach Quinn and Cormac Donaghy as they opened up an eight-point lead.

Roscommon went 14 minutes without a score, until Shane Cunnane slotted over a point. And while the midfielder added two more from placed balls, there was no halting the red and white wave, with Jordan and Canavan striking again to send them in with a 0-13 to 0-5 interval lead

But it was the westerners who bossed the third quarter, outscoring their opponents by five points to one, narrowing the gap to four, thanks to the efforts of the excellent Cunnane, Oisín Lennon and Peter Gillooly.

Cunnane and Gillooly were the men who slotted over the scores as Tyrone's tempo waned and a dramatic comeback began to look possible.

But a piece of Canavan magic got the Red Hands back on track in the 50th minute. He rifled a stunning strike from the edge of the large parallelogram to the top corner, after Daniel Miller and Michael Conroy had combined, and the Rossies had to start all over again.

Substitute Darragh Walsh helped them do so with three points, with wing-back John Martin also chipping in with a score. But Tyrone got their defence back in order, and a couple of points from substitute Conroy was followed up by a clinching goal in stoppage time by another sub Mark Hayes.    

Scorers - Tyrone: D Canavan 1-3, M Hayes 1-0, E Jordan 0-5 (3f), D Miller 0-3, C Donaghy (1f), M Conroy 0-2 each, J Oguz, T Quinn, O McHugh 0-1 each. Roscommon: S Cunnane 0-5 (2f),P Gilloly 0-4 (1f), D Walsh 0-3 (1f), C Sugrue, J Martin, P Carey 0-1 each.

Tyrone - L Quinn; A Fox, M McCusker, C Ward; R Slane, C Munroe, T Quinn, M Murnaghan, J Oguz; C Donaghy, D Canavan, D Miller; E Jordan, C Donnelly, T Hoy. Subs: M Hayes for Hoy (39), O McHugh for Slane (39), M Conroy for Donnelly (45), R McCabe for Jordan (50), L Gray for Donaghy (57).

Roscommon - M O'Donnell; D Horan, J Keane, P Frost; C Lawless, O Lennon, J Martin; T McManus, S Cunnane; N Higgins, P Carey, A Lyons; P Gillooly, J Larkin, C Sugrue. Subs: P McGrath for Larkin (27), D Murray for McManus (h-t), P McManus for Lawless (38), D Walsh for Sugrue (41), D Duff for Horan (49), R Donoghue for Lennon (58)

Ref - B Cawley (Kildare)

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