Malachy O’Rourke stressed that Tyrone will need to be at their very best to topple All-Ireland champions Armagh in a mouthwatering Ulster SFC semi-final.

The Tyrone manager was speaking after Darren McCurry turned in a man of the match performance in a comfortable 1-24 to 0-20 quarter-final victory over Cavan at O’Neills Healy Park.

“We know, especially after the League performance, that we have to bring our ‘A’ game. We have to get to a really high level to be competitive against Armagh because they’re such a strong team,” O’Rourke said.

“That’s all we’re thinking of: we’re not really thinking of winning the game at this stage, we’re just thinking of preparing as best we can and being as competitive as we can be on the day. Once you’re competitive that’s all you can ask for, and that’s our aim.”

Reflecting on the performance against the Breffni County, the Red Hand boss commented: “I thought the first 10 minutes, we weren’t great. After that, we started to get a handle on the kickouts, particularly the Cavan kickouts, and we got a lot of scores from that.

“I thought that the boys linked up very well and got some really good team scores. In the second half, we got sloppy towards the end and allowed Cavan back into it, so there are areas that we need to work on.”

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