When you're around long enough, you get to hear everything eventually. I thought I was long past being surprised by anything in football. But then I heard Peter Canavan saying he reckoned Tyrone should be trying to keep a bit up their sleeve when they play Dublin on Sunday. And do you know what's worse? I think he might even believe it!
I had to laugh for a second when I heard it. Can you imagine the reaction if I said that about Kerry if they were in Tyrone’s position? It would be all ‘cute-hoor’ this and ‘yerra’ that. Would anybody take it seriously? Not for a second.
And rightly so. Because it doesn't make any sense. Now, Canavan is a smart operator and he's very close to Mickey Harte. He knows the scene above in Tyrone better than anyone and he knows what they have and what they're capable of. Ordinarily, I would never disagree with him when it comes to Tyrone because he obviously knows more about them than I ever will. I don't actually doubt that he's sincere, either.
The idea is basic enough – Tyrone might meet Dublin in an All-Ireland final, all going well, so you want to keep your best stuff for the biggest day. Partly as well, it would be driven by the feeling that while you might catch the Dubs once, you’ll hardly do it twice. And when it comes to deciding who you get in a semi-final, there’s not much between the teams coming from the other group so it doesn’t really make any odds whether you finish top or second.
But I just think there’s a basic flaw in the thinking here. All that stuff would be fine and you’d nearly see the sense in it if you were talking about a game between equals. If it was a pair of teams that regularly beat each other or there was only a kick of a ball between them, then you’d be right to keep a bit up your sleeve for later on down the line.
That’s not the case here though. Thinking like that seriously overestimates where Tyrone stand in regards to the Dubs. They’ve been able to compete with them in the league over the past few years but their championship record against them has been bad for a long time.
Mickey Harte hasn’t beaten Dublin in the championship since 2008. They have a string of defeats against them going back five games in eight years. There isn’t a player in the Tyrone panel who has been on a winning team against the Dubs when it mattered. If they’re ever going to turn it around, they have to first win a game. Any game.
Tyrone have been reminded again and again and again where they stand. They have a distance to make up on a Dublin team that looks to be getting stronger and younger and better every year. Holding something back against them is a luxury Tyrone can’t afford.
Right now, the problem most teams have playing Dublin is first and foremost about belief. Who really believes they can beat them? There are four teams left who can win the All-Ireland apart from Dublin and none of them have beaten Dublin in the championship in five years. Mayo are the only ones who have come close – and I'd guess that as a result, they have the most belief of anyone.
Tyrone don't have that belief. You only have to go back to last year's All-Ireland final to see it, clear as day. Tyrone made the most perfect start you could imagine to that game. They went 0-5 to 0-1 ahead after 17 minutes and they had Dublin where they wanted them. But all it took was one bad kick-out from Niall Morgan and everything fell to pieces.
Dublin outscored them 2-6 to 0-1 between then and half-time. Any belief Tyrone had in the idea that they might beat the Dubs just popped like a bubble. That's not me making a judgment – Colm Cavanagh was their best player and he said it himself after the game.
“You aim to start every game fast,” Cavanagh said. “So yeah, that was what we aimed for in the first 20 minutes. But I think we actually were in a wee bit of shock that it had gone that well. The scores were going over, we were kicking the ball in and winning the play. Everything that you dream of starting an All-Ireland final was happening. But maybe that came with a little bit of a shock. It’s hard to put your finger on it.
“Probably the hardest thing to take is that we were taking shots on from angles we shouldn’t have been doing, we were taking the wrong choices. If we had kept playing Dublin at their own game, keeping the ball properly and making them come out at us, we could have been in such a better position. But it’s hard to get that message about when the place is rocking and things are going against you. It’s very hard to get the message around to be smart.”
I agree with Cavanagh, 100 per cent. It’s very hard to be smart – but that’s where experience comes in. Everybody who ever played football has been on the pitch while the opposition is getting a run on you. We’ve all had to endure it, some of us have had to endure it in Croke Park with the whole country watching. And the one thing I can say for certain is that unless you have belief, you have no chance of turning it around.
Now, belief is a hard thing to define and a harder thing to get. There’s no foolproof way to develop it. It’s a gradual thing that builds over time. But if you’re after spending your whole intercounty career losing to a certain team, belief is unlikely to suddenly wash over you in Croke Park on All-Ireland final day while they are outscoring you by 2-6 to 0-1 in the space of 20 minutes.
The only place to start is with brass tacks. Tyrone don’t necessarily need to beat Dublin on Sunday but they need to get into a game with them. They need to be there fighting out a finish with them in the last five minutes. Not one of those games where they tack on late points to make the scoreline look like it had been a contest. An honest-to-God battle, whatever the result ends up being.
Most of all, they need to get that feeling in the dressingroom afterwards where everyone knows it without having to say it. No forced speeches. No bullshit. No sob stories. Just that growing belief. We had them. We were able to live with them. Now, we build on it.
In a way, Tyrone are blessed to have Dublin in a game like this. Don’t mind what anyone says about it being a dead rubber. The Dubs don’t do dead rubbers. That’s not how they go about things. It won’t be a case of sitting down afterwards and going, ‘Ah sure Dublin didn’t try a leg.’ Whatever Tyrone get out of this game, they will know they earned it.
That’s why I can’t see them doing anything other than pulling out all the stops. If you’re very lucky, you get two chances like this in a year to test yourself against the best in the land and find out where you are. Most years, you won’t even get one. It would be silly to waste it by shadow boxing.
Even if it wasn’t Dublin, Tyrone should be going all-in on Sunday. There’s three games left to win an All-Ireland. This whole thing is over for the year in four and a half weeks. You’re either in or you’re out at this stage. If you risk going half-hearted at it this Sunday, you have only a week to ramp it back up again for the semi-final. It might be possible but it’s hardly ideal.
Galway weren’t able to manage it last year. They got it into their heads that they didn’t have to go full-bore against Monaghan in the last Super-8s game because they had already beaten Kerry and Kildare. You could see it that night in Salthill – they were so static and so passive that they got over-run. In the back of their heads, they had a safety net and it showed.
But sure what good was it to them? A week later they went up against the Dubs in Croke Park and could hardly get out of the blocks. They never landed a glove and Dublin beat them in third gear. They looked nothing like the Galway team that had pushed Dublin all the way in the league final earlier in the year – or even the one that won those Super-8s games. When it came right down to it, they weren’t able to flick a switch and get back up to speed.
I don’t see any reason for Tyrone to risk the same thing happening to them. Let’s say they hold something back, what then? Dublin come to Omagh and beat them by 10 or 12 points and they go away telling themselves that’s not a true reflection of where they stand. I don’t see what use that is to them. I just see it as a waste of a game.
To my mind, Tyrone need to go out with the intention of taking an almighty cut off Dublin on Sunday and forget about trying to be too cute about it. It probably won’t be enough – I see them as being a fair bit off them even at their best – but that’s not the point. You have to walk before you can run.
