Rivalry is no issue for Harte
MICKEY Harte insists that the hostility between Tyrone and Donegal has not reached an alarming level and there is nothing more than a sporting rivalry between the two counties.
They meet in the Ulster Under21 quarter-final replay in Ballybofey this evening, the third time Donegal and Tyrone teams have met in the past week, and another fractious affair is expected following Saturday’s tempestuous Division 1 encounter which was marred by a number of melees.
However, the Tyrone boss reckons the enmity between the neighbours, who are likely to meet in an Ulster semi-final this summer, is being overplayed.
‘I think it is a rivalry that has evolved because Donegal has emerged in the past five years as a serious team, with an All-Ireland win and played in six Ulster finals in a row. So there is a rejuvenation of Donegal as a power. When someone rises as a power, other teams want to challenge that power,’ Harte (below) explained.
‘Monaghan have become a team to do it and we feel that we have the team to do it, as well. Rivalries happen from time to time but the whole idea of enmity that exists within that rivalry can be overplayed. I know that crowds can get fractious in terms of the vociferous nature of their comments and things like that but that is always going to happen when you have people who are very passionate and maybe don’t have as much sense to go with the passion.’
The conditions at the weekend mitigated against a flowing game of football and it also meant that Harte never really got to see how his ‘twin towers’ experiment of placing both Seán Cavanagh and Mattie Donnelly in the inside-forward line could work,
‘Well, the public at large and the people reporting on our games are getting too excited by this idea,’ Harte said when asked about playing the pair in front of goal. ‘It is a very fluid situation. People think because Seán Cavanagh is in there or Mattie Donnelly is in there, sometimes on their own and sometimes together, that this is a new departure for Tyrone.
‘It is not necessarily that at all, it is a degree of experimentation, of trying some things out, and again, the conditions are going to make a difference to that, and getting players used to playing with that kind of personnel in there. That brings a different challenge to their mindset too, because we don’t normally play that sort of ball in.
‘But I don’t want people to think that we are going to change and we are going to be some kind of team that heap every ball on top of big men and forget about what served us well in the past. ‘It’s a question of getting a bit of balance, maybe sometimes that will be appropriate for us to do and other times, we revert to type. It is only about getting a bit of mix and match into our whole game-plan. I wouldn’t read too much into any move that is made at this point in time, it’s an experimental stage of our season.’ Harte suggested a couple of years ago that no team could win an All-Ireland title outside of Division 1. With four teams battling it out for the top two spots in the top-flight, it has been an exceptional spring for Gaelic football. But taking a look through the Divisions, Harte feels that it has been a great year for the National League.
‘This is an exceptional year,’ Harte says. ‘You couldn’t say who is going to win Division 1, 2 or 3 yet. You couldn’t even say who is going to be in the final. There’s nobody striding ahead.
‘Division 4 with Wexford already up and Westmeath in pole position to join them is the only one where teams have gone ahead. It is very competitive and it shows that it is a competition everyone takes seriously now. ‘I remember back in 2003, when we last won the League, a lot of the bigger teams of that era didn’t particularly take the League seriously, the fact that the League is to be played for, of course, but when the Championship comes along, we can turn on the Championship button. Over the last decade, that has not been the case and I suppose it has been the emergence of that mentality that Dublin have won the last four leagues in a row, and have been very successful in the All-Ireland aswell.
‘People used to think if you do well in the League, you mightn’t necessarily be a big shot in the Championship. But it has turned full circle, it has become very important to be doing well in the League to give yourself a chance of doing well in the Championship.’
z Mickey Harte was speaking at the launch of the 2017 KN All-Ireland golf challenge, for which the Michaela Foundation is the sponsored charity.
14 Years since Tyrone last won the Dvision 1 title — their last success coming back in 2003