Harte will know Tyrone are as far away from All-Ireland as
BEFORE the final whistle blew yesterday, disgruntled Tyrone supporters streamed out the exit gates of Omagh’s Healy Park damp and dejected. Their anger and frustration was palpable.
Mickey Harte, not for the first time in his tenure, will sense the sharpening of knives amongst a hardened section of Tyrone supporters, who feel his time at the helm has long since expired.
Mickey has been steadfast in the belief that he is building a team that can realistically win an All-Ireland. Even allowing for his unerring optimism towards Tyrone, he will know deep down that his current team are as far away from an All- Ireland as they were when they got steamrolled by Dublin last August.
Nothing on display yesterday pointed towards the contrary.
It shows how far Monaghan have come when a Championship victory over Tyrone in their own backyard, was met with such measured celebrations from the Farney terraces.
In 2014 when we defeated them in Clones for the first time in 26 years, at the same stage in the Ulster Championship, there was rapturous celebration.
Back then however, it was an overwhelming sense of relief following a decade of defeats at the hands of Cavanagh, Gormley, O’Neill and Co that fuelled the celebrations.
Such leaders are sorely missed from the current Tyrone team, as was all too apparent yesterday, and few of the current Monaghan team carry any of that same baggage we once laboured with.
For two counties with such a fractious history, the game itself was strangely subdued for long parts, and largely lacking in any of the expected aggression or intensity. With both teams content on packing their defences and running the ball through the hands in attack, exchanges were often lateral with few passes ever finding the inside forward lines.
Monaghan were more content in such an environment, even if their main scoring options Conor McManus and Jack McCarron rarely threatened from open play.
Whilst similar in so many aspects of play, the difference between the teams was in large part found in Monaghan’s number one.
In Rory Beggan, Monaghan have arguably the best goalkeeper in the country at present. Rory’s unrivalled kicking from distance gives Monaghan a scoring outlet few
and a hefty shoulder charge to send the crowd into raptures. But the passage ended with John McGrath hitting the post and Dan McCormack burying the rebound.
That was what we’d expected to see, Limerick’s determination set at naught by Tipperary’s class. Yet as the game wore on we saw much more of the former and much less of the latter.
The manager’s immediate response to this defeat has been to impose a media ban on himself.
He’s apparently staying schtum till the end of the Munster Championship. Those of you who lust for Michael Ryan quotes will have to seek other sources of stimulation until June 10.
His reaction seems a classic example of turning a drama into a crisis.
Tipperary were awful yesterday, but should still emerge from Munster. Two wins in their remaining three games would probably suffice. That should be well within their compass, especially if the temptation to make utterly insane team selections is resisted.
Ryan’s sudden silence is strange because he has received so much admiring coverage portraying him as a chilled-out guru of positive hurling.
He’s no media whipping boy. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that he simply couldn’t face answering questions about the weirdness of yesterday’s selections.
The few minutes of discomfort involved would apparently have been too much to endure. One wonders if the silence will be broken should Tipperary get back on track and the manager feel all justified once more.
Then again, the decision, following last year’s defeat to Cork, to suspend Cathal Barrett from the panel when the player was out injured anyway suggested a certain peevishness of character.
Tipperary seem peculiarly dogged by rumours about internal dissension and managers losing the dressing room. There’s a simple explanation for that.
LOGIC
There have been too many performances which, given the talent of the players involved, seem to defy logic. You don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to find it strange that the Tipp attack, with all its firepower, could manage to put over only five points from play in 70-plus minutes.
It may turn out that Tipp are so lacklustre at the moment because they’ve chosen the right way to pace themselves through a restructured championship with novel physical demands.
For all their faults they cannot be discounted as All-Ireland contenders. This is not a bad team. It’s a very good team playing badly at the moment.
The players must take some responsibility for yesterday’s debacle, but the manager’s team selections and post-match reaction have put them under pressure.
It’s not the media who picked Willie Connors ahead of Brendan Maher at midfield.
Even the best players need to feel that the man in charge knows what he’s doing.
The fault, dear Michael, lies not in your stars, but in yourself.