GAA: Tyrone's Mickey Harte has expressed disappointment that his team's opening National Football League fixture next Sunday isn't being staged at Croke Park, writes Seán Moran.

Harte was speaking at the official launch of the league by the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, at the headquarters of sponsors Allianz.

"I would prefer Croke Park but I like both venues and I've nothing against Parnell Park," said the manager of the All-Ireland champions. "It's just that Croke Park would have facilitated more fans and it might turn into a bit of ticket hunt. You hear people say that they'd have preferred it in Croke Park but it's probably more in anticipation of not being able to get tickets."

There has been comment on the decision to fix the match for Dublin's home venue of Parnell Park given that last year's season began with a huge crowd of 54,000 attending the match between Dublin and Tyrone's predecessors Armagh. Dublin manager Tommy Lyons said that he was "not unhappy" at the venue and drew a distinction between this and last year.

"I'd very little say in this. But Dublin-Armagh was fixed for Croke Park on the back of a titanic struggle, which we lost with the ball hitting the post. I wouldn't have thought Dublin supporters would have come out to Croke Park this year in those sorts of numbers."

Tyrone have won the league for the past two years and it played a central part in the county's march to a first All-Ireland last September. In his first season in charge Harte established a policy of going out to win every match rather than taking things easy during the spring.

The team's success in competition meant that Harte didn't have to play any challenge matches. This year will be no different although he was careful not to be too dogmatic.

"Quite often when you play challenge matches teams experiment wholesale. And the team that begins against you is unrecognisable when the game is over, so I haven't got a lot of time for those sort of encounters. But it's up to everyone else to treat them as they want and to take from them what they want, but it would be my thought at this time not to be involved in challenge matches."

Asked if the public could expect a change in style from the conservative tactics that dominated the team's All-Ireland semi-final and final victories against Kerry and Armagh, or maybe a reversion to the more attacking play of earlier last season, Harte said he would be flexible.

"If you watch all our games throughout the season you'll have seen a variety of different styles of play and they were effective on various days. If we have some new ideas to merge with what went before we'll be happy to do that."

There will be no variation, however, on the training methods of last year, which minimised collective training sessions and allowed players more time at home, organising their own training.

"In the winter months there'll be one collective night and two on their own," according to Harte, "and when the hour goes on there'll be two collective and one night on their own. They do a conditioning night that they do by themselves. It's to do with facilitating them not having to be away from home."

He was reticent though about proclaiming his methods a guarantee of success.

"It's just the way we have done it. We're not saying it's a perfect formula, we're not even saying it will work this year for us, but we'll pursue that kind of strategy and when you win people say this is the perfect way. I don't believe that. There's a new script coming up and someone else could come up with a new way of doing things that we'll all be talking about next year."