Red Hands hurling hitting heady heights

Off-Broadway and away from the glare of the mainstream, Saturday's Division 2B hurling league semi-final between Donegal and Tyrone will take place in Letterkenny.

There won’t be traffic jams, nor queues at the gate, nor will there be catering vans to feed the masses.

But for the hurlers of Tyrone, Saturday’s semi-final is another quiet step on a significant journey.

Last Saturday, Aidan Kelly hit 0-18 for the county when they beat Wicklow. Kelly started hurling when Tyrone were in the lowest division, playing Lory Meagher Cup and not going anywhere fast.

This weekend, he will be part of a team trying to reach the 2B league final.

And next season, Kelly will be on the side that plays at the highest level in the history of the county. No matter what happens against Donegal, Tyrone have already qualified for the newly restructured Division 2 next year, where they will play with counties such as Meath, Kildare and Kerry.

This progress comes only months after Cavan, Fermanagh, Leitrim, Longford and Louth – teams that Tyrone would meet often in recent seasons – earned a reprieve when a proposal to remove them from the 2025 Allianz league was referred to the new hurling development taskforce.

Those counties draw from small playing pools and for Tyrone to reach their current level is impressive, considering the huge turnover of players from last season.

"With travel, retirement and players lost to football, we were down 13 players at the start of this season, which made progress an even bigger challenge for us," said Tyrone hurling manager and Antrim native Stephen McGarry, who was previously on Michael McShane’s coaching team over the last three seasons.

In that time the team achieved promotion to Allianz League Division 2B and won the