Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
A SHAKE OF THE HANDS
Colm: Panic attack cost us so dear
COLM CAVANAGH admitted Tyrone went into “panic mode” after their flying start to yesterday’s final.
Early on, Mickey Harte’s side defied the pre-match odds as they raced into a 0-5 to 0-1 and were lording the exchanges around the field against a strangely subdued Dublin.
But the champions settled in the second quarter and a flurry of scores saw them seven points clear at half-time, a deficit which Tyrone couldn’t reel in.
Cavanagh said: “To be honest I think the fast start was unbelievable and we shocked ourselves in a way going 5-1 up.
“We seemed to go into a panic mode, which is crazy to think because we felt we could manage the game if we went 5-1 up. But we were reckless, we kicked shots away and we made bad decisions. Had that not been the case, it could have been a very different end to the first half.
“It turned out that Dublin got a point back, got the goal and it really took the stuffing out of us and it was very hard to recover.
“Yeah, that first 20 minutes we’ll probably look back on the hardest and say, ‘Why were we not a wee bit better and put Dublin under pressure?’.”
Cavanagh was the only Red Hand player with All-ireland final experience, having been introduced as a sub in their 2008 success against Kerry, and said he would have been tempted to call time on his career if they’d pulled off a shock here.
“Yeah, look I toyed with this. I joked with the boys that if we were to win something this year I could see my days out – I did consider it this year if we had’ve won.
“I’m 31 years of age now, I’m not getting any younger. A lot of these guys are making it harder and harder to come back and compete with.
“However, I don’t know whether I could go out like that. There’s serious potential in this team, we’ve developed a great bond over the last number of months.”
For
Harte
(right), the glass was half full – not least because Tyrone halved the deficit on Dublin from their last Croke Park meeting.
He said: “If you get beaten by whatever it was, 12 last year and half of that this year, then you have to believe that’s better, that’s progress. But have you got the capacity to make the next step? Who knows?
“Next year will tell a tale. We have to be very competitive in the
League and gain more experience of playing at that level and then see can we qualify for the last eight and qualify for semi-finals and finals.
“That’s the challenge but look, every team will be wanting to do that and then it depends how you stay injury-free, how your players develop and grow from this experience or are there some new players you can find that will add value to what we’re about. All of these things are up in the air but you have to believe, be an optimist, otherwise there wouldn’t be much point in doing this.”