Keeper of the flame
Ulster final is heading south to Croke Park
THE Ulster football final between Tyrone and Monaghan will take place in Croke Park on Saturday week. The Ulster Council confirmed last evening that the game will go ahead at headquarters with a 4pm throw-in on the evening of July 31, ensuring the Anglo Celt final returns to Dublin for the first time since 2006. However, the decision to move the game south is set to disrupt the finals of the hurling championship’s lower tier with the Christy Ring, Nickey Rackard and Lory Meagher deciders scheduled for Croke Park on the same afternoon. Croke Park’s CCCC is expected to clarify today the impact of scheduling the Ulster final for headquarters will have on those finals, but it is anticipated that one of the finals will be put back 24 hours and will be played as the curtain-raiser to the Dublin v Kildare Leinster decider. The decision to move the Ulster final south follows the same logic as the Connacht Council’s move, with 18,000 spectators to attend this Sunday’s historic decider at headquarters between
AS Brian Dooher conducted his media duties in the Brewster Park stand on Sunday evening, he caught the eye of Mickey Harte, who responded by giving him the thumbs up.
It may just have been a ‘well done’ signal between the former All-Ireland-winning manager and captain partnership, but it felt more like Harte’s seal of approval on an afternoon when Tyrone returned to some basic principles that served them well for so long.
Tyrone’s opening games of this year’s Allianz League were scrutinised and, to a degree, applauded for what was deemed to be a more ambitious and expansive gameplan under Dooher and Feargal Logan, but it was more than a little off the mark.
The reality is that in Harte’s final three seasons, Tyrone had changed in structure and style, schooled by a disastrous and ultra-defensive set-up in the 2017 All-Ireland semi-final which Dublin
torched.
In the two seasons that followed, Harte tweaked his structure, first dismantling the double-sweeper system, and in 2019 adding some beef to his full-forward line by pushing Mattie Donnelly and Cathal McShane inside; in the process ensuring the latter would end that season as the championship top scorer and an All-Star recipient.
But give a manager a defensive name…..
It is true that Dooher and Logan took that a step further down the road of orthodoxy in the early rounds of the league, but a horrific 70 minutes in Killarney last month, when Kerry hit them for six goals, takes on the look of a blessing in disguise with every passing game.
‘There’s no doubt in saying it was embarrassing that day to wear the jersey and be part of such a trouncing.
‘But we tried things that day that didn’t work but that’s not to say they won’t work again,’ suggested Kieran McGeary, one of the key performers in Sunday’s win over Donegal that ensured Tyrone are heading back into an Ulster final for the first time in four years.
However, the reality is that the chances of Dooher and Logan trying and making that more attack nuanced game-plan work again in the business end of the All-Ireland series is somewhere between slim and none.
The change in approach from that Kerry game – and their good fortune is that they had a fourweek build up for their opening championship game against Cavan that allowed them to reset – is evident in the changes of personnel.
Just 10 of the team that started in Killarney were on the field for the throw-in against Donegal, but what is truly significant is the change of emphasis that has been facilitated by those coming into the team.
Two defenders in Rory Brennan and Michael O’Neill, two midfielders in Brian Kennedy and Colin Kilpatrick and a deep-lying half-forward in Niall Sludden have been giving starting roles they will almost certainly retain for the final against Monaghan in two weeks’ time.
Just as revealing is that three of the five players who have dropped out from the Kerry game are out and out forwards in Paul Donaghy, Conor McKenna and Darragh Canavan.
True, the latter is injured since that game when he sustained an ankle ligament injury and has now returned to training with Logan confirming that he would be “close” to being fit for the final.
However, as gifted a talent as Canavan is it is likely that the Tyrone management will be more acutely aware that picking the best players for how they want to play, rather than getting their best players on the pitch, will take priority.
What the mid-season reworking of system and style is seeking to achieve is to ensure that Tyrone are now built to stay in games longer against top opposition, and in the process develop a match-changing bench for the critical business end of games.
Tyrone’s lack of depth in the forward line was an issue in recent seasons, but it is plausible that they could have the option of McKenna, Canavan, Donaghy and Mark Bradley to introduce from the bench in the Ulster final.
And it is not just in attack where options are being cultivated. Tiernan McCann’s form had tapered off in recent seasons, but he appears to be getting a new lease of life coming from the bench.
Ironically, and it was about the only positive that could be rescued from the evening, that began in Killarney, when the energy and athleticism saw some life injected into the team and was even rewarded with a goal.
His impact against Donegal when introduced for the second
“We tried to do things that didn’t work”
“The aim is to compete longer and pounce”
half was transformative as he nailed three points as a result of those driving off the shoulder runs.
The flip side, though, is that Tyrone’s reinvestment in structure – Frank Burns has returned to a sweeping role – is that it goes against the tide of the top teams who have become more aggressive in targeting opposition kick-outs.
Tyrone were only afforded the opportunity to press hard on Donegal as a result of Michael Murphy’s dismissal, so their game-plan still has to face the ultimate stress test.
However, the experience of that humiliation in Kerry and in finding a way to bounce back from it can be the making of them.
‘It can, it absolutely can,’ insists McGeary.
‘It shows the character that you have, the level you are sitting at and I suppose it gives you a good toe up the backside too at times.’
‘This is where you want to be you want to be now, in an Ulster final. You want to get there and show people what you’ve got and as a team the work you’ve done.’