Derry and Tyrone through to McKenna cup final
The Reigning Power NI Dr. McKenna Cup final will be fought out by Derry and Tyrone after both sides pulled through from today's semi-finals.
Holders Derry claimed a 0-11 to 0-9 victory over Down at the Athletic Grounds. They were helped by a dominant second half display during which Mark Lynch, Conleith Gilligan and Cailean O'Boyle made their mark up front.
Down edged a low-scoring first half by 0-4 to 0-3 with free-taker Aidan Carr accounting for three of their points.
The fit-again Paddy Bradley had kicked Derry ahead early on and Gilligan added their second. But the Mourne men replied with four on the bounce, including a towering score from Dan Gordon.
Bradley fired over his second point before the break, and the Oak Leafers seized control on the resumption with successive scores from Lynch, Gilligan (0-2) and O'Boyle.
Carr snapped back two points for Down, but Derry were beginning to find their rhythm now and bolstered their tally with further white flags from Gilligan, Gerard O'Kane and an increasingly influential Bradley.
A well-struck free from Mark Poland and an Arthur McConville effort showed that Down were up for the fight despite Benny Coulter being kept quiet for long spells.
However, they lost the services of Kalum King, with three minutes to go, when he was dismissed for aiming a boot at a Derry player. Gilligan and McConville swapped late points, leaving Derry to hold on to a two-point winning margin.
Meanwhile, in their second meeting in five days, Tyrone beat Fermanagh on a 2-12 to 1-4 scoreline in this afternoon's second semi-final.
Fermanagh settled quickly thanks to an early goal from Seamus Quigley. The goal scorer and James Sherry had both pointed before that, helping the Ernesiders a 1-2 to 0-1 lead.
They were still two to the good at the break, but Tyrone went up through the gears in the second period to completely dominate Peter Canavan's side.
They made immediate in-roads with points from man-of-the-match Mark Donnelly, substitute Martin Penrose and Ronan O'Neill.
Although Conor Quigley briefly levelled for Fermanagh, Tyrone pushed on again with scores from Kyle Coney and O'Neill. With 57 minutes on the clock, the industrious Owen Mulligan plucked a long ball in from Penrose out of the sky before rifling home a well-taken goal.
The Red Hands settled the issue by outscoring Fermanagh by 1-4 to 0-1 during the remaining minutes, with substitute Stephen O'Neill providing the assist for the second major from Ronan O'Neill (1-3).
Substitute Michael Murphy was also on target late on for Mickey Harte's men, who tightened things up in defence and kept Fermanagh to just two second half points - Conor Quigley and Paul Ward were the scorers of those.
