GORMLEY ASKS RED HANDS TO STEP IT UP
TYRONE legend Conor Gormley believes the county’s current crop of forwards has yet to prove they are capable of doing it on the biggest days at Croke Park. The three-time All-Ireland winner, who retired after a qualifier defeat to Armagh in 2014, reckons doubts over the Tyrone forwards will only disappear if they put it up to the game’s best defenders in summer. ‘If they are to be marquee forwards, they need to be scoring 1-2 or 1-3, 0-5 or 0-6 against the likes of Jonny Cooper and Philly McMahon, against Keith Higgins,’ Gormley said. ‘That is when they need to show that they have the full package. ‘The forwards on our team, they always showed it out on Croke Park on the big day and that is the challenge for the current team. Can they take it to the next level, hit 1-2 or 1-3 against the top teams? ‘Ronan O’Neill, Lee Brennan, Connor McAliskey have all the talent and they have shown what they can do at a certain level. But they need to do it against the big teams.’
EVEN now, more than three years away from the county scene, Conor Gormley misses it terribly. He felt a pang yesterday as he stood on the Croke Park pitch that he bestrode as a defensive giant for Tyrone during the 2000s.
He smiles thinly as he recalls the summer of 2015, his first as a supporter. Sitting in the Cusack Stand for the All-Ireland semifinal against Kerry, still believing that at 34, he could have offered something. Growing frustrated as the game slipped from Tyrone’s grasp, he left before the final whistle.
‘I found it wild hard that first year,’ he remembered. ‘It was difficult to get into that mindset of being so involved for 14 years to just sitting there and watching them. When they played Kerry in the semi-final, I had to leave, couldn’t watch it. I had the wife and kids up the road, just couldn’t watch the end. I was probably envious, sitting there for an All-Ireland semi-final. It was hard to adjust back to the life of a club player and supporter.’
Harder still when the sense was that Tyrone had lost their place at the top table. It was only last summer that it was felt they had regained it — only for the limitations of the game-plan that was painstakingly crafted by Mickey Harte over the past two years to be exposed ruthlessly by Dublin last August.
Gormley sighs at the memory of the 12-point defeat in the All-Ireland semi-final. For a teak-tough defender who’s reputation was forged on aggression and a relentless competitive spirit, the way that Tyrone were rolled over by the Dublin juggernaut was the hardest thing to watch.
‘It was disappointing. It’s an All-Ireland semi-final. You want to go out and show a bit of fire and a bit of controlled aggression,’ Gormley observed. ‘With an All-Ireland final up for grabs, and a chance to knock an immense Dublin team off their perch, you want to go out and show what you can do.
‘What disappointed me most was that after Con O’Callaghan’s early goal, they just gave up a wee bit. They didn’t show that fire or fight to get back into the game. But I think they will learn from that. I was chatting to a few of them in the off-season and they are really disappointed with how they went in the game, so hopefully, they will learn and progress on from that.’
As Gormley points out, his own first experience in Croke Park didn’t go well with Sligo dumping Tyrone out of the Championship in 2002. The Carrickmore native was taken off at half-time after being given the run-around by Gerry McGowan. But just over a year later, Harte had led that same group to Tyrone’s first All-Ireland, Gormley enshrining himself in GAA folklore with his extraordinary late block on Steven McDonnell’s goalbound shot for Armagh.
That Tyrone team learned from the disappointing exit to Sligo, so perhaps this team will also learn. But the feeling remains that they will have to play in a more expansive manner. However, Gormley, who works as schools coach in the Strabane area, wonders if the style of football reflects the players at Harte’s disposal.
The team of the noughties included some of the greatest forwards to ever play Gaelic football — Peter Canavan, Stephen O’Neill, Brian McGuigan, Eoin Mulligan. Comparing them to those all-time greats may be a little unfair.
‘There has been a lot of chat about Tyrone’s style but sometimes, you’ve got to deal with what you have got and what he sees best with what he has,’ Gormley says. ‘He has some good players that can run up and down all day, Tiernan McCann, who hopefully will be fit, Mattie Donnelly, Petey [Harte] so I wouldn’t get too caught up in the style, if that’s what he sees benefitting Tyrone going forward.
‘He’s playing the style that suits those boys. There is a lot of talk of marquee forwards but maybe we just don’t have that. Mark Bradley has been tried in there, Conor McAliskey, Ronan O’Neill. But maybe we don’t have that Conor McManus, Michael Murphy or Paddy McBrearty, that stand-out forward.
‘So that’s the system he designed and that’s the way they play. That is what he has to go with for the minute. It’s going okay but maybe when they get to the Super 8s or the semi-final, will it be okay? It’s hard to know. We will just have to wait and see how it goes.’
But Gormley believes that if Tyrone run into Dublin again, they will be up for the fight. ‘If I was still playing, I would be thinking right, this is the team I want to play this year. I have a point to prove against these guys.’
Another reminder that it wasn’t just Conor Gormley’s aggression that Tyrone have missed, but also his relentless competitive spirit and his will to win.
Conor Gormley was speaking at the official launch of the EirGrid under-20 All-Ireland football championship.