National Football League Division Two
Derry v Tyrone at Celtic Park, Saturday 6pm.
Referee: Paddy Neilon
LAST week Derry were well below their best at Croke Park against Meath while a young Tyrone team drew at home against 14 men Kildare.
Expect Tyrone to have some of their injured players back while Derry may have the services of Ryan Scullion and Lachlan Murray included in their selected 15.
The Tyrone manager Malachy O’Rourke – who took Glen to high success in his four year tenure – knows the Derry players inside out and he is as good as an extra man for the Red Hands.
Derry looked very flat last Saturday in a game battered by high winds and lashing rain.
They looked like a team that had been doing some heavy training.
Maybe that defeat will have blown the cobwebs away. Several players like Shane McGuigan, Conor Glass and Brendan Rogers had not got much game time prior to the meeting with Meath.
Ethan Jordan, playing his first serious game with Tyrone, had a brilliant game against Kildare scoring 1-9.
Veteran Matty Donnelly, despite not scoring, did conduct the orchestra up front.
Eoin McElholm is a brilliant young player and if Derry can contain these three it will boost their chances.
Derry will have to get a lot more out of their forwards, in the modern game 1-13 is a low score and that is all Derry got against Meath with Shane McGuigan and Paul Cassidy accounting for 1-10 of that total.
Derry usually put their best foot forward at Celtic Park.
Another defeat would put a serious dent in their promotion chances.
