THE IRRESISTIBLE JUGGERNAUT

Dubs too fast, too good and too clever

IT DOES not happen very often, but this week Mickey Harte was painted as a rabbit caught in the headlights of a Dublin juggernaut.

His former midfielder Enda McGinley was recalling their 2010 All-Ireland quarter-final defeat and the post-match debrief which took place in Kelly’s Inn — a Niall Morgan kick-out away from where Tyrone’s centre of excellence in Garvaghy is now located.

‘It was the first time that we had won 100 per cent of our kick-outs,’ recalled McGinley.

‘I was one of the Tyrone midfielders for a long time and we were happy to win 50-50 because we weren’t blessed with brilliant midfielders, but somehow we won 100 per cent of our kick-outs that day. And somehow we hit 17 wides, we were shooting under pressure.

‘That was the first day that a team had retreated and gave us the kick-outs and then waited for us to come on.

‘I remember going to the postmatch meeting in Kelly’s Inn, as we always did to sift through the ashes of the year, and Mickey says, “Boys, we won 100 per cent of our kick-outs”…’

Tyrone and Harte’s difficulty in getting a read on Dublin extends beyond Jim Gavin to Pat Gilroy, who so cleverly disguised his gift-wrapping of Tyrone possession that it left Harte believing that day’s kick-out dominance was a blessing rather than an act of Dublin cunning.

Twelve months ago, the notion that Harte was once more behind Dublin’s tactical curve was hard to ignore. In a revealing pre-season interview back in January, Harte poured over the ashes of Con O’Callaghan’s fourth-minute goal that suffocated his team’s chances before they even had an opportunity to breathe.

At the crux of his confusion was that the goal came from O’Callaghan’s negligence in not ‘marking’ Pádraig Hamspey, whose miscontrol of Niall Sludden’s misdirected pass, led to the turnover which led to the goal that led to the end of the game before it had even started.

‘Now, he got it in a way I wouldn’t like — by not being an honest broker and going after the man as he should have done,’ said Harte.

There is, of course, logic in what Harte said, but it could be argued there was also a lack of awareness in not acknowledging that, while Dublin have structure, they are not unblinking slaves to it.

They play intuitively as well, which makes them the kind of team not easy to make sense off on a tactical whiteboard. And the consensus is that, if Tyrone are to have a chance tomorrow, Harte must pitch the kind of tactical curve ball Gavin and Dublin will not see coming.

In short, Tyrone will have to do onto Dublin what has been pain- fully been done onto them in the past. And Harte has not been shy of advice on that front — Jim McGuinness arguing that Tyrone must go with the kind of extreme mass defence last showcased by his own Donegal team in 2011.

On the other side of the coin, there has been talk that Harte should tear up his game-plan and relocate Colm Cavanagh at the edge of the Dublin square rather than his own.

Less fanciful is the idea that Cavanagh stays put and that Peter Harte is asked to play a defined role between full and centre-forward as a declaration of Tyrone’s ambition.

In the main, though, the only consensus is that Harte and Tyrone cannot afford to lose like they did last year. The expressed hope is that, in finding a new way to lose, they might just stumble on one to win.

Whatever the detail of Harte’s blueprint, the guiding principles are obvious.

Tyrone have to engage Dublin higher up the field and do so with a ferocity and purpose that ensures the champions’ control of the game and ball is something well shy of absolute.

It will also necessitate dialling up the heat on Stephen Cluxton; just like they did in the final 10 minutes of their Super 8’s game last month when, facilitated by a tightened Omagh pitch, they put him under intense pressure.

All of that is doable, but it comes with a health warning.

Even before O’Callaghan’s early goal in last year’s semi-final. Cluxton delivered the first blow to Tyrone’s fragile belief system.

As they pressed up aggressively on his first restart he kicked it 65 metres down the pitch into Niall Scully’s welcoming hands.

Dublin’s charm as one of football’s greatest teams is they can play and win any way they like.

Yes, there are tangible reasons for Tyrone hope. Dublin never win easy on All-Ireland final day — four of their five wins have been in one-point games, while the exception in 2015 against Kerry was still only one score (three-points).

But that says more about the quality they were faced with, in particular a driven, high-quality Mayo team, and it makes for quite the leap of faith to assume Tyrone are at that level.

The other thing that can never be forgotten is that while Mayo articulated their manic desire, Dublin, for all they have won, never backed an inch.

That is what makes them the team they are and dispels the notion they will be fazed by whatever chaos Tyrone try and bring on the big day.

Because the bottom line is that Dublin will match Tyrone’s attitude and after that the gaping chasm in class – Cluxton, Jonny Cooper, James McCarthy, Bryan Fenton, Ciaran Kilkenny and Paul Mannion would make six of the top ten best players in the country — brooks no argument.

This time losing the tactical battle will not be where it is at.

This time they just get to be dazzled by a team for the ages.

Gavin’s men can play, and win, any way they like