NIALL: IT WAS RIGHT TO SAY ’NO’ TO MICKEY

FOR any young footballer in Tyrone trying to make his way in the world, saying ‘no’ to Mickey Harte could make you look either bad or mad.

But Niall Sludden (above) is neither of those things.

So when the county’s legendary manager came calling to invite the 2010 All-ireland minor winner into the senior squad, Sludden had the courage of his convictions – and turned him down.

“I was pretty young, around 19 or 20, and I felt that I wasn’t physically ready for the demands of the game at that age,” he recalls.

“I just wanted to wait. To be fair to Mickey, he respected that and said that he would still keep me in his thoughts.”

Current Tyrone skipper Mattie Donnelly also politely declined an opportunity earlier in his career, but it’s a high-risk strategy that could easily have back-fired on Sludden.

When he broke his leg in 2013, spending his 21st birthday in Altnaglevin Hospital in Derry, it could have pushed him so far down the pecking order that

Harte could have forgotten about him.

He knew he had to choose his words carefully.

“I was young back then and speaking to Mickey Harte (inset), you were very much in awe of the man and of what he had done.

“So when the phone call came, I had to make sure when I was talking to him not to give the impression I was saying ‘hold on now Mickey, I don’t want to be part of your squad and I don’t care about the Tyrone team.’

“I was saying ‘I am not ready but if you give me the call and I keep playing well for my club, no doubt I will come back in’. I was leaving a reminder and thankfully he made that call again.”

The Dromore man was not so much a late developer, just someone who burst into the set-up in 2016 as a ready-made senior inter-county footballer.

There was no need to serve an apprenticeship. At 24, he knew he was ready.

“I had the (leg) injury and that was a massive part of my development because I really appreciated my football after that.

“It was definitely a key moment in my life but a lot of the boys in the squad and around football have had major issues, especially the cruciate.

“Look at Connor Mcaliskey there; he was only coming back from it last year and he is flying again this year.

“A lot of people will say an injury like that in your career does stand to you so when Mickey did come with the call, I felt ready. I had a good pre-season.

“I came in at 24, not just to be part of the squad but to come in and make a start.

“I had that confidence in myself from the injury and from playing a few bigger games with the club.” Along with Colm Cavanagh, Mattie Donnelly and Peter Harte, Sludden is one of the men who makes Tyrone tick.

After himself and Cavanagh were the only two to ‘turn up’ in last year’s All-ireland semi-final 12-point thrashing by Dublin, he found himself a marked man when the Dubs landed in Omagh for this year’s Super 8s clash.

Dublin newcomer Eoin Murchin contained him well, but now Sludden has the chance to try to inflict some damage on Dublin again in Sunday’s final.

Looking back to the game in Omagh, Sludden said: “Teams look at certain players they want to stop and they did a very good job that day on me.

“That’s just part of the game now and every team will go out to stop the key threats.

“When you do that you go a long way to taking out any team. That’s just part and parcel of the game.

“I look at that as a good thing as well because they are concentrating on me as a threat, but we’ve got plenty of other players that can step up too.” OWEN Mulligan is convinced that nice guys don’t win All-irelands – and is calling for Tyrone to get “nasty” with Dublin on Sunday.

Mugsy, 37, won three Celtic Crosses under the guidance of Mickey Harte and believes that wouldn’t have been possible without a spine of hard men in that best-ever Tyrone outfit.

Tyrone had Dublin’s number back then and Mulligan insists only a similar mindset will cause an All-ireland final upset this week.

“We thought they were mentally weak,” recalled Mulligan.

“We thought that if we got on top of them, they that we could get into their faces and know how to turn (push) their buttons.

“We would target their big players, like Alan Brogan. There are a couple of games that Alan didn’t finish because he went off injured. Accidentally, probably, but you don’t know that!

“But we had some great players to do that – and to talk to them. If a player missed a free kick, ‘Oh, unlucky there, you’ll get the next one’.

“We had the men to mix it. I could name you Ricey (Ryan Mcmenamin, right), (Conor) Gormley.

“Have Tyrone got that now? You don’t learn how to do that. You’re born with it, it’s in your genes.

“But that’s all turned now. See when they’re in a difficult position, that’s when Dublin are at their most dangerous because the amount of the times they can get up the field, get over the line.

“The subs they bring on, they’re all winners – they’re bringing All-stars off the bench. Like, it’s unheard of – players of the year