TYRONE MANAGER MICKEY HARTE:The man who has guided Tyrone to three All-Ireland senior titles since 2003 has no intention of resting on his laurels. KEITH DUGGANreports
AN OIL portrait of Peter Canavan with the Sam Maguire hangs on the wall of Kelly’s Inn, a local institution on the long, straight road between Omagh and Ballygawley since the 1930s.
Faces from the Tyrone senior football squad have become two-a-penny in the place in the last few years and on a sleepy afternoon, Mickey Harte sips a cup of coffee and talks about the one task that has so far eluded him: defending an All-Ireland title.
Few would have predicted, when Canavan lifted the cup in 2003, that Tyrone would win a further two All-Irelands within the decade. They have worked their way from an unfashionable place to earn whatever garlands have been thrown their way and are reminiscent of the Galway and Down teams of the 1960s in their blithe lack of concern about tradition in Gaelic football. That is why they will feel fully at home for the Big Night At Croke Park. Big occasions liberate Tyrone.
Last year might have been the most impressive of their three All-Irelands. In retirement Canavan had, through no fault of his own, become a spectral presence among the younger players and the whispers that they could not win one without him were growing louder. And Harte was a manager on the rack.
Tyrone had been a flickering force in 2006 and 2007 but by the summer of 2008, the mood across the county was pessimistic and after Down defeated Tyrone in a memorable extra-time replay, the popular verdict was the Red Hand were a busted flush and that Harte’s time was all but up.
“None of that was true for me,” Harte says now of the speculation that was rife early last summer.
“It was in the public domain and people may have wished that was the case for their own convoluted reasons. People don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story. Look, we put ourselves under pressure all the time. We want to do the best that we can do. Maybe for all of us, at a certain stage, you wonder is the desire there.
“Subconsciously, you might think: we aren’t too bad, we have two . But when things go against you and the results aren’t coming for you, you do ask questions. It was never at the point where people felt that we had lost tactical awareness. There was no bitching. No sign of that.
“And in a strange way, while people out there cast aspersions after our defeat to Down, we saw it differently. We couldn’t figure how it was such an accomplishment for Down to beat us and yet it also represented that we were gone. That is not how we saw it. There was a great sense – almost like the world market at the moment – of doom and gloom, that Tyrone couldn’t do anything.
“Our run after that Down match was progressive and unexciting until we played Dublin and then the imagination began to flow again.”
In terms of football, Harte’s imagination has seemed both highly disciplined and fearlessly radical. In many respects, he is conventionally old-school – on this wintry afternoon, he wears a pinstripe jacket and pioneer pin – but he is endlessly curious and open to outside influences and habitually scours psychology and sports publications for nuggets of wisdom.
He cuts a singular figure on the sideline, slim and bespectacled, inscrutably watching the high-octane action. Calmness has always been his calling card and with it a belief in his own ability.
Harte has deconstructed the standard 1-15 team formulation and trusts his instinct absolutely.
On the eve of the All-Ireland final, the news that he had lured Stephen O’Neill out of retirement and back into the panel was regarded as bold and possibly foolhardy, with some interpreting it as a grand stunt to try and distract Kerry’s preparation.
“Ahh, it is a gamble. The gamble being I believed it was the right thing to do regardless of the result. If we had lost, people would have said it was wrong. To me, it was not a difficult call. But if you lose – and this is the problem, I think, with the assessments of teams who lose. Retrospectively, you can give them six or eight good reasons why they lost and yet if they won, those same reasons are regarded as dead-on.
“I know what would have been wrong with us if we had lost: ‘bringing Stephen O’Neill back was crazy’. ‘Why did we wait so long to bring Kevin Hughes into the middle of the field?’ ‘Why did Owen Mulligan not come in sooner?’ ‘Why was Brian McGuigan not starting?’ ‘Why did you take Joe McMahon out of half forward to corner back?’ – crazy decision if we lost. But because we won, nobody bothers with them.”
In a way, the Clann na Gael man O’Neill was on a hiding to nothing by returning before the final. He was so unhappy with his performance he decided against accepting his winner’s medal.
“That is the case at the moment,” said Harte. “We might encourage him to change his mind on that too. When Stephen left, he was frustrated and wasn’t enjoying football. He had given 10 years to the county and he felt that maybe he should cut ties. I didn’t agree with him. And I tried to persuade him to stay. . .
“At various stages, he was close to coming back. So when he returned, he wasn’t a stranger. He had been on this panel for 10 years and he was resuming his career. So Stephen isn’t the best judge of how he played because he is too hard on himself. He had a hand in the goal, which was rather crucial and he took Kerry’s best marker to him and that probably freed up others. The medal will be there for him and I think in due course Stephen will see fit to take it. In the light of what he has given Tyrone – and what he is about to give.”
O’Neill’s free-scoring exploits in the McKenna Cup suggest he has plenty left to contribute.
Standing still is the worst sin in Harte’s book. “If players come back thinking they can do what they did last year, it won’t be good enough.” He is brimming with ideas of how Tyrone can change and be more progressive this year and he feels the illuminative energy he brings is central to his role as coach. Since leaving his career as a teacher for a life in business, he has tried to apply the same principles.
He talks passionately about how to redress the crippling stagnation in the property market – he has been working with Martin Short for the past five years. He is not fazed by the sharp and dramatic correction in prices.
John Wooden, the venerable UCLA college basketball coach, is one of the teachers Harte has been reading for years.
“Things turn out best for those who make the best of the way things turn out,” he quotes. “I think that may be what I am about in life. You can give or sap energy. So which do you want to be? I have an energetic disposition and I hope that rubs off. I know that what is happening now is having a serious impact on people, they are losing jobs and find themselves in circumstances they never envisaged a short time ago. But there comes a time when you have to ask what you can do about that situation. And there are ways around this if people are willing to think innovatively – as we are.”
His football innovation has been evident. One of his big decisions last year was persevering with using Seán Cavanagh as a forward, a switch initially widely criticised but gloriously vindicated by the Moy man’s performance in the critical phases of the All-Ireland.
“It is not about doing things to create an impression. There is a serious mobility in our team, which is essential. Even though Seán wore number 14 on his back, he wasn’t the traditional forward. Once again, he will have a free licence to play football in the right department of the field that suits him and the team. But you have to see innovation with the players. They have to bring something to the table and I have to show them my mind is still working to try and make us better collectively at what we do.
“We are in the business of gambling – that is what coaches and managers do. They gamble. You must experiment to find out what is going to happen.”
Tyrone’s journey from the day when they attacked the storied shirts of Kerry – and the mythology of Kingdom football – with ravenous hunger has been a long and sometimes tragic road to the summit. They have earned respect the hard way.
Their maiden All-Ireland final appearance against Armagh was written off as a local contretemps on the national stage and it took a while to lose the stigma following that ’03 win which, according to Harte. was “a misrepresentation” of Tyrone football.
Six years later and Tyrone are a blisteringly skilful and exceptional football team. But they may never be the national darlings.
Talk turns to the moment when Joe McMahon, hirsute and animated, got up close and personal with Tommy Walsh in the All-Ireland final. It was the subject of much tut-tutting afterwards and, like all Tyrone’s indiscretions, seemed to draw disproportionate criticism.
“That happened emotionally in the height of the moment,” said Harte. “We wouldn’t tell him to go out and talk in Tommy Walsh’s ear. And it ought to be put in context too: is that worse than hitting someone a punch in the ear off the ball – which used to be the order of the day?
Harte has been a prominent critic of International Rules and warms to the subject here again.
“I think it is an awful game. There is no international Gaelic football and masquerading in this compromise doesn’t do it.”
Instead, Harte talks wistfully about the notion of a genuine international dimension to Gaelic games, with maybe the All-Ireland junior champions playing the national champions from other countries in a Féile-type competition in San Francisco. He knows it sounds idealistic but still sounds persuasive. “Why not? How did any sport become popular around the world. You have to start somewhere.”
Over 10 years ago Harte started out with the Tyrone minors. Several of those young players have been there for the great moments since. Tyrone have attitude and, at their best, play with a swagger not everyone likes. But legacy and popularity are not Harte’s concerns.
“No. It doesn’t bother me because I know what we are about. The players know what we are about. And we know what we are about is to play football – total football if we can. And that is the large majority of what our emphasis goes on. Obviously you have to defend and try and regain possession. But if people interpret that as negative, so be it.”
So be it. Tyrone are back in the big time this evening, All-Ireland champions and guests of the establishment for what promises to be an extravagant celebration in bleak times. The bragging rights for the team of the decade promises to be the chief domestic distraction of the Irish sporting summer. Harte smiles at the old chestnut – the team of the decade.
“People can play about with those things as is their wont. We won’t be preoccupied with that. No. The song The Gambler comes to mind. That line: “Never count your money when you are sitting on the table”. No. We will reflect on this period in Tyrone football. But not now. We have to be about the business of the present.”
