HE really meant it that time.

You know, that cameo with Canavan at the end of the Armagh game last September and he grinned "I don't mind!" He wouldn't have either. Yesterday Tyrone again had a crucial free, not even to win but to just survive.

There was no one else to take it either. God had retired.

McGuigan's leg was broken.

Hughes was suspended.

Dooher couldn't play, having failed to recover from a collision with Ciaran Gourley in midweek. Sean Cavanagh was completely out of sorts. And then, the two men who hadn't been fit to start the last day against Derry weren't fit to end yesterday, Ger Cavlan and Stephen O'Neill both hobbling off. Mulligan had to take it and nail it and he did both. Louth though were the real heroes.

People said the back door was dying? It's well alive. And football with it. This was a classic.

The first 20 minutes, like the game itself, was hugely entertaining if error-ridden.

Both sides were guilty of some terrible turnovers . . . even Ryan McMenamin wasn't immune to it, inadvertently setting up Darren Clarke and Louth's opening point of the day . . . but at the same time managed to produce some scores that were a delight to behold, corner-back Jamie Carr's run and fisted point a particular highlight.

Louth's problem was that Philip Jordan was being allowed cut through their centre, while O'Neill was showing flashes of brilliance and in the 25th minute a Mulligan point had them ahead. Before the half was over he had scored another 2-1. First he popped over a point. Then, as we entered injury time, Ryan McMenamin blocked JP Rooney.

The ball broke to Ryan Mellon who resisted laying it off to teammates on either side and instead opted to continue carrying the ball before hitting an immaculate long-range foot pass into Mulligan who duly rounded Stuart Reynolds.

Thirty seconds later Reynolds was picking the ball out of the net again. This time the killer through-ball was played by Cavlan to O'Neill, and though Reynolds managed to strip him off the ball, it bounced off the in-running Mulligan and then the post and back into the path of Mulligan who made sure. In the space of a minute, it had gone from a ball game . . . 0-7 to 0-5 . . .

to, at 2-7 to 0-5, a turkey shoot.

Or so we thought.

It didn't. Louth's response was heroic. First they went up the field to score a point through Mark Stanfield, their first in 15 minutes, to leave them seven down at the half.

Then they reeled off three of the second half 's first four points. And then, in the 47th minute, they rattled the same net Mulligan had, Mark Stanfield blasting home after being put through by JP Rooney. At 2-7 to 1-8, we had ourselves a ball game again.

And it stayed one for the rest of the game. Though Enda McGinley added greater fluency and scoring to Tyrone's passing game upon his introduction, Louth kept coming back, most often through Clarke points from either frees or play. And then entering injury time, they levelled it, Mark Stanfield ingeniously flicking on a high ball behind him to Mark Brennan, who passed across to JP Rooney to hammer to the net. 2-13 to 2-13, and after a nerve-wracking few minutes, we had extra time.

Tyrone were reeling now.

Not only had they lost an eightpoint lead but their chief score-getter, O'Neill, through injury. Louth smelled blood.

Centre forward Mark Brennan continued to create havoc in the air, Brian White curled over two brilliant points and at half-time in extra time they were 2-16 to 2-14 up. They were scoring from range and Tyrone weren't. But then a few sloppy frees let Mulligan show what he didn't get to do last September.

LOUTH S Reynolds; D Brennan, C Goss, J Carr (0-1); J O'Brien, P McGinnity, J Neary; M Farrelly (0-1), P Keenan (0-1); C Grimes, M Brennan (0-1), R Carroll; M Stan"eld (1-2), JP Rooney (1-0), D Clarke (0-7, 4 frees) Subs R Finnegan (0-1) for Carroll, 27 mins; B White (0-2) for Grimes, 52 mins; Grimes for Rooney, 81 mins; T O'Brien for Clarke, 81 mins; M Fanning for J O'Brien, 87 mins

TYRONE: P McConnell; R McMenamin, C McGinley, M McGee; D Harte, C Gormley, P Jordan (0-1); C Holmes, S Cavanagh; P Donnelly, G Cavlan (0-1 free), R Mellon; M Penrose, S O'Neill (0-4, one free, one 45), O Mulligan (2-6, three frees) Subs E McGinley (0-2) for Donnelly, h-t; R Mulgrew (0-1) for Cavlan, 40 mins; D Carlin for Harte, 54 mins; B Meenan for Holmes, 63 mins; A Ball (0-1) for O'Neill, 68 mins; B Donnelly for Mellon,78 mins Referee F Flynn (Leitrim)