HARTE CHOICE TO MAKE

Tyrone must ensure Peter plays in right position if they’re to dethrone champions

Harte will have to live with the suffocating presence of John Small

OF all Mickey Harte’s innovations, perhaps his least heralded has been the camouflaging of his best forward as a utility player. In truth, his nephew, Peter Harte, deserves to be labelled as something other than a ‘Jack of all trades’ when he is pretty much a master of all.

But that is the challenge he presents you with. What exactly is he?

In his eight years he has filled just about every jersey from five upwards but none of those numbers have ever come close to defining what he is about.

Perhaps, in that sense the number seven shirt that he has worn regularly for the last few seasons at least hints at his role, but only if you view it through the eyes of another code.

In the old days when numbers meant more than replica shirt sales in soccer, the number seven jersey was reserved for the creative force which made a team tick, which is why at places like Manchester United, where it was once the property of George Best, Eric Cantona and Cristiano Ronaldo, it remains the most iconic and cherished number.

Harte, though, is the antithesis of that orgy of vanities, but he is Tyrone’s most creative force and also their most potent.

While he plays defence, attack — as repeated heatmaps have shown — is his primary function.

And if they are to have a shot at defying the overwhelming odds and win this Sunday, they will have to find a way to ensure that he gets to both pull the strings and draw some Dublin blood.

But to do that, it will also require a gameplan that has got to be nourished with ambition.

And that is one other reason why his uncle can’t afford to go with the same defensive blueprint which allowed Dublin to effectively humiliate them last year.

That game was over by half-time and Harte, who had excelled all summer not least in the quarterfinal annihilation of Armagh, was left hopelessly on the fringes.

Harte’s strength is to negotiate from deep through the pockets of space to ensure that when the Tyrone transition needs to bare its teeth, he is in the position to either draw a foul within scoring range, provide the assist for a score or do the needful himself.

There is no attacking strategy if he is gagged, just a kick and a hope.

In the first half of last year’s semi-final, he received the ball just seven times in open play, the last of which concluded with a beautifully speared point just before half-time when the game was already gone out the gate.

That served as a chronic indictment of Tyrone’s gameplan, but it was also an inevitable consequence that their best player was hardly going to get his hands on the ball when Dublin were allowed to have a monopoly of possession.

The other reason why Harte was such an isolated figure was because he was man-marked cloth-tight by the ever persistent John Small.

Being man-marked is nothing new for Harte. In the 2011 Ulster semi-final against Donegal, he was, famously, unmercifully sledged throughout the game by Kevin Cassidy.

‘I see your uncle Mickey is warming someone up to take your place,’ chirped Cassidy, who was happy to reveal afterwards that it was part of a deliberate plan to get inside Harte’s head.

It may have worked that day — he missed three frees — but he is no longer that kid, and he has shown time and again that if you don’t nail him down then he will make you pay.

Monaghan were the latest to find that out in the semi-final when after shackling him for the bones of an hour, Fintan Kelly no longer had the lungs or the legs to chase and in one forward run, Harte flipped the contest on its head to make the incursion that would see Niall Sludden find the net.

But Small is not in the habit of fading away.

In last month’s Super 8s clash in Omagh the pair clashed again and once more the Ballymun man got the job done, to the degree that he matched Harte’s solitary point from play with one of his own.

As well as being outstanding defender, Small is also an abrasive presence and the yellow card he picked up after 23 minutes of last year’s semi-final, could have been issued 13 minutes earlier when he was involved in an off the ball wrestling match which was motivated in stopping Harte making a support run off the ball.

Harte is going to have to live with Small’s suffocating presence on Sunday, but some, like twotime All-Ireland winner Enda McGinley, believe that the terms of engagement should be changed.

‘Petie Harte’s position is key to Tyrone,’ suggested McGinley this week.

‘He has had tough battles with John Small and Small has used every trick in the book — and some outside of the book — to negate him.

‘If Tyrone are to have a chance in this All-Ireland, they cannot afford to let him be negated in that way.

‘Petie has done really well for Tyrone whenever he’s moved up into the forward line, or even the full-forward line.

‘I would fancy him up there because suddenly the man-marking of John Small is less effective if you’re in the full-forward position because you’re traditionally man-marked in there anyway.’

There is a certain logic there in that Harte possesses the instincts of a strike forward — he has racked up 12-67 in 50 Championship appearances and is the team’s top goalscorer in open play.

The flip side, though, is that without him deeper out the field, Tyrone will struggle to get the kind of quality ball into their inside line which needs to be fast and precise enough to penetrate Dublin’s retreating defence.

But Tyrone can hardly go with a one-man attack like 12 months ago — Mark Bradley the sacrificial lamb — so it may well be that Harte is asked to play a more conventional role in the half-forward line but if that is to happen, Tyrone will have to engage Dublin in a more aggressive and ambitious manner.

The alternative is to sit in and ensure that Harte stays behind the ball as spectator.

And that is no alternative at all.