Tyrone secure comfortable win over Offaly

Offaly 0-8 Tyrone 1-27
Tyrone comfortably moved into Round 2 of the All-Ireland Football Championship qualifiers on Saturday afternoon with an utterly dominant victory over Offaly in Tullamore.
In what was the first ever championship meeting between the sides, Tyrone blew Offaly away in the first-half, and lead 0-15 to 0-1 at the break, having taken full advantage of a strong wind in their favour.
They continued to add to their lead after the restart, with Ronan O’Neill’s goal 10 minutes from time putting the seal on a huge 22-point victory for Mickey Harte’s side.
Darren McCurry hit 0-7 for them in that opening period, five from play, while Matthew Donnelly and Seán Cavanagh both hit 0-3 in the first half.
Conor Clarke (2), McCurry, Cavanagh and Ciarán McGinley hit points after the restart to extend the Tyrone lead even further, but Offaly finally put a scoring run together early in the second half when points from Brian Darby, Padraig Bracken and Ken Casey made it 0-20 to 0-4.
It was a very brief interruption to the Tyrone dominance though, as O’Neill, McAliskey and Cavanagh quickly added points to extend the lead further.
O’Neill’s sharp finish 10 minutes from time put 20 points between the teams, a remarkable gap, and the goalscorer, Mark Donnelly, Kyle Coney and Cavanagh kicked further points in the closing minutes to complete a high-scoring win for Tyrone, who will await their Round 2 opponents with interest.
P McConnell; R McKenna, D McBride, C McCarron; C Clarke (0-2), P Harte, C Gormley; C Cavanagh, S Cavanagh (0-6, five frees); Matthew Donnelly (0-3), Mark Donnelly (0-2), C McGinley (0-1); D McCurry (0-8, three frees), M Penrose, C McAliskey (0-2). Subs: Joe McMahon for C Cavanagh (half-time), R O’Neill (1-2) for McCurry (51 mins), A Cassidy for Clarke (57 mins), K Coney (0-1, free) for Penrose (60 mins), J Lafferty for Matthew Donnelly (64 mins)