Harte pleads with fans to get behind the team for final against

MICKEY Harte came into the press room in Croke Park, took a seat, a bottle of water and a sharp exhale.

They had done it. Back in a final, courtesy of Niall Sludden finding the net in a game where every action was critical. That it was Peter Harte, Tiernan McCann and Sludden in the move shows that when Tyrone needed their big names to step up, they did so a matter of minutes after Monaghan went in front for the first time in the game.

The blue-collar attributes appealed to Harte’s sensibilities.

“A goal was always going to be a big score in this game because it was so tight. A goal was a major score, thankfully we got it and we needed every last point from it to the end there,” he said.

“I just think it is a credit to the boys. They didn’t lie down to the fact that they were creating plenty in the first half, but not getting the value of it on the scoreboard. That can be quite debilitating on their whole mindset.

“They lived with that and continued to work really hard, they battled their way through that second half. It was anybody’s game.”

His sense of fate and destiny came into it when he added: “I feel for Monaghan, of course, because we have been there four times in the last five. We have lost our previous four so we are well aware of how they feel.”

“Ten years is a long time and on our fifth attempt to get to the final we felt as a group we needed to be in this final. Thanks be to God we are there.”

The Tyrone support have been notoriously reluctant to embrace this side and this season, but are poised now to go headlong into a festival of football for the next three weeks for the build-up to an All-Ireland final against Dublin.

“The public need it and Tyrone people need it to make us take a bite at this final. We haven’t great memories of our semi-final against Dublin here last year so we need to be so much better than that. If we are it should be a much better game and who knows what could happen?” said Harte.

Looking ahead to the final and comparing it to last season’s 12-point defeat in the semi-final against Dublin, he said: “I think it has to be a two-sided affair. We feel we underperformed and I am sure Dublin performed to a high level...

“That doesn’t please anybodyexcept the team in the position to win. It doesn’t please the rest of the country. So we would like to think we can be part of a good final and if we do our very best I think we should be in touching distance of Dublin and that would be good.”