Harte will have Sam big plans for Derry
Oak Leaf men need to know they’re not invincible
ONE brilliant thing Mickey Harte has with him is that he will have everyone in Derry convinced they are going to win the Sam Maguire — 100 per cent.
There will be no doubt whatsoever that the League win was a justification that they can beat the best teams, which really and truly are Dublin, Kerry and themselves right now.
In their heads they probably hadn’t reached that threshold of beating Dublin or Kerry at Croke Park in the last few years - and now they have done it.
Okay, the objective person on the outside will look at it that Dublin are missing a handful of players that could definitely bring them on come June or July time.
But Mickey is incredibly persuasive, and on his terms these Derry lads will be going, ‘There is no doubt whatsoever that we are going to go and beat Donegal in a few weeks’ time.’
It’s heads down for that.
There will be no celebrations of a mad nature.
It would have been back to training early this week and away they go for the Championship.
Mickey has done incredibly well to get that success in the McKenna Cup and League, and Derry are on that crest of a wave now.
But a number of times with us we were going similarly well and we were walloped back down to earth.
Quite often Donegal did it. It was only at that point we started to realise our fragility.
Right now, Derry will be incredibly confident, which is a good thing, but sometimes you can be over confident.
As a Tyrone man looking on, I would have sometimes said that would have been a weakness of a Dublin, a Kerry, or a Derry back when things were going very well.
We would have looked at those counties and thought they have a tendency to get carried away with themselves. They have a tendency to be a wee bit over confident.
We would have spoken a lot about how that would be an advantage of ours going in to face them.
The danger Derry probably have is that they do get into that space and start thinking they are impossible to beat.
Jim McGuinness, with a team like Donegal, is a master of exposing any over confidence, or maybe breaking a system you think is unbreakable.
I’d just put a note of caution in - even though their minds will be on July 28 and an AllIreland win. There’s a fair bit of football before then.
If they were to take a defeat in Celtic Park by Donegal, it would definitely reset things.
A couple of years we were of the mindset that we were going to win the All-Ireland and were beaten in the first round.
It didn’t do us any harm. We went on to win it from there twice.
A defeat brought us back to the idea of ‘Okay, we can be beaten here.’
Right now Derry will be feeling totally unbeatable – and they are going to roll in and win a third Ulster Championship in a row and ultimately win Sam.
Mickey’s language is always win, win, win, win, win, positivity, ‘we are the best.’
It’s a good thing when it’s good, but ultimately I know there’s a few times we fell foul of not realising the dangers that were out there.
With the new Championship format, it’s hard to know what the right road is.
Part of me is wondering whether Derry would be better off out of Ulster early.
It would give them a bit of a break for two or three weeks.
With Tyrone, Armagh had beaten us in the first round of Ulster in 2002 and many of us
hadn’t won an Ulster senior title going into 2003.
We won the League, but we were poor and Derry should have beaten us in the first round of the Championship.
I remember Peter Canavan digging us out with an outside of the boot free from the edge of the D with a tricky breeze.
Conleith Gilligan was joking with him saying, ‘Peter, you are not going to be able to kick it,’ with the way the breeze was.
Canavan turned and kicked it with the outside of his boot just to spite him probably.
We were vulnerable in that game after walking the League.
Down had us beaten in the Ulster final too.
We most definitely weren’t at our best, whether it was over
confidence or fatigue.
Maybe taking themselves out of the limelight for a few weeks, would that be the worst thing for Derry?
Possibly not, but they won’t be talking like that.
Mickey is incredible at creating that bubble.
Right now, they’ll be talking about winning everything, three Ulsters in a row and all that.
They have been incredibly impressive, but you just start to wonder whether you can do it for 20 games, or whatever you play over the course of the year.
If they do and they become like an Arsenal Invincibles team, you’d go, ‘Yeah, unbelievable lads, you were incredible.’
But something tells me that somewhere along the line, going with that approach might just leave them a bit short of energy.
I have no doubt Mickey will be going full tilt for every single game from here on in.
He was clever enough, in that he did rest the lads up at Celtic Park against Dublin.
That was a sign of a slightly softer Mickey than the one that I knew.
So maybe he has changed a little bit and did recognise some of those lads needed a week off.
And that Dublin were going to be the most likely opposition in the final and he didn’t want to show his hand.
But from here on, it will be full steam ahead.
The spotlight has been on Derry all Spring and will be even heavier after Sunday.
Had they lost on penalties would it have been a better thing for them? Would it have left that wee bit of an edge?
They had Dublin beat two or three teams and no doubt they were the better team.
I always felt the years we won anything, we knew somebody on paper was out there being touted as better than you.
You always had something to chase and motivate you, and light the fire in you.
Maybe it still is there for Derry.
The flip side is they needed the silverware and winning the League is an achievement in itself.
But ultimately it’s going to be the big one that’s going to define Derry’s season.