Derry huff and puff but Harte still encouraged
THE years may have passed and allegiances may have changed, but the one constant is that there is still no place for ambiguity in Mickey Harte’s world.
While others are simply too cool for school when it comes to the preseason, Harte’s world view has always been framed by the simple pragmatism that a game not worth winning is a game not worth playing.
That may go some way to explaining why Tyrone won the McKenna Cup 12 times during his 18-year reign and, more pertinently, why Derry will be lining out in the final next weekend against the winners of this afternoon’s other semi-final between Monaghan and Donegal.
Mind, that could also be interpreted as providing some continuity given that Derry are also the current holders, in what was the last piece of silverware they lifted under Rory Gallagher before his and their world was flipped on its head.
More than chasing a modest prize, though, with an opening round trip to Kerry in the Allianz League at the end of the month, Harte’s focus is on hitting the ground running for when it really matters.
That was evident in a team-sheet sprinkled with the familiar, including no fewer than nine of the team that lost to the Kingdom in last year’s All-Ireland semi-final who were in from the start here.
The real question, though, is not how Harte will change the team in terms of personnel – there is likely to be minimal movement on that front – but how he can tweak the game plan to find the inches needed to deliver the county a second Sam Maguire.
From the latter perspective, if anything can be taken from this it is that he still has quite the body of work on his hands.
Derry’s hurt from last summer’s semi-final defeat was salted by the knowledge that they lost a game in which they had been clearly the better team.
The first half here echoed that in that they dominated possession, feasted on turnovers and yet by the time the half-time whistle sounded, they had nothing to show for it with the teams tied at 0-7 to 1-4.
That is because no matter how nuanced and structured game-plans are, inevitably they can all be distilled down to simple truths. Such as, when you are in control of possession you must do something with it.
Yet Derry’s tally of wides matched their seven-point tally in that opening period.
And a layered defence is all well and good, but when it can be penetrated as simply as Sean Conlon’s 24th minute strike – which was sourced in nothing more creative than Oisin O’Neill’s up and under which the visitors’ full-back line failed to deal with – then it does not amount to a whole pile.
And all this against an Armagh team which could have been housed in a laboratory rather than a dressing room such was their experimental vibe – only Ciaran Higgins and Ben Crealy were exposed to championship action last summer. It took more than a little of the gloss away from this result.
True, they saw it out in the end, primarily off Shane McGuigan’s dead ball skills but on an evening when they failed to convert even one of the four clear goal chances they created, it only served to accentuate the perception that the Derry attack flies on one wing.
Given the strength of the team fielded – added to by the introduction of Niall Loughlin and Niall Toner from the bench – it still took a string of five unanswered points to finally pull away from the hosts, who clung hard to the lifeline that was Ben Crealy’s scrambled goal at the beginning of the second half.
But post-match, Harte was keen to accentuate the positives.
‘If you are creating four goal chances then that means that you are doing something right. I would be much happier about creating four goal chances and missing them rather than not creating anything at all,’ he suggested.
Still, given that reading tea leaves can prove to be more illuminating than reading anything of import into January football, Harte got what mattered most here, as his advocacy for retaining the pre-season competitions – which the GAA sought to get rid of a few seasons back – paid off.
‘I believe it is seriously valuable. Some of our players will have four games under their belt before they get to Kerry and that can’t be bad.
‘Game time is essential and the more games we get in a competitive area, I am all for that.
‘I would like to see it staying. It is very important because people are going straight into the National League at the end of January and if you go straight into that, it devalues the league. If people are not playing in competitions like this, they will be hunting down challenge matches. This is a ready made competition which is there, crowds come to it, the media cover it. What better way could you get to prepare for the real season?’
And he was gone, into the night with the comfort that what has worked before can work again. Derry: O Lynch; D Baker, E McEvoy, C McKaigue; C Doherty, G McKinless, P McGrogan; D Higgins (R Forbes, 67), B Rogers; D Gilmore, D Cassidy (N Loughlin, 47), P Cassidy; B McCarron (N Toner, 47), S McGuigan, C Murphy (N O’Donnell, 70+3). Scorers: S McGuigan 0-10 (0-8 frees), C Murphy 0-2, E McEvoy, C Doherty, P McGrogan, D Higgins and P Cassidy 0-1 each.
ArmAgh: B Hughes; T McCormack, C Higgins, S Conlon (M McConville, 67); C Mackin, N Rowland, M Shields; B Crealey (D McGee, 66), C O’Neill; C O’Hanlon, J Sheridan (J Og Burns, 46), J Kieran; C McConville, O O’Neill, D McMullan. Scorers: S Conlon 1-2 ( 0-1 M), B Crealy 1-1, O O’Neill 0-3 (0-2 frees), J Kieran 0-1. referee: P Clarke (Cavan)