‘We have to beat the best team ever to get our hands on Sam’
IF TYRONE are to collect Sam Maguire for the fourth time they will have to beat the ‘best team ever’ in Sunday’s AllIreland SFC final, according to Peter Harte. However, Harte believes that the prospect of defeating heavily favoured Dublin can drive on the Red Hand men. ‘And that’s your target — to beat that team,’ he said. ‘So, we’re under no illusions that it’s the biggest task in football. It’s the biggest task probably a Tyrone team has ever faced.’ The defender got to see first-hand the scale of the challenge after his team was humbled by 12 points in last year’s All-Ireland semi-final. While Tyrone shaved that deficit down to three points when the teams met in the Super 8s last month in Omagh, returning to Croke Park to meet the champions is a daunting prospect. But Harte believes Tyrone, unlike last year, will make sure that they ‘stay in the game’ on Sunday. ‘You know every mistake you make is going to be exploited probably to the maximum,’ he said. ‘After last year we’ve all wanted to get back there, not to right the wrongs but just to put in a better performance. Of course we would love to keep it really tight and keep within the minimum between ourselves and Dublin for as long as we can. ‘The big challenge for us will be when it does, that we don’t let it go the one way. ‘That was the most disappointing thing last year, all our fans felt that, that the game went away from us and there was no chance of getting it back. ‘The big challenge going into this final is that we don’t let that happen,’ admitted Harte.