Westerners have been toughest nut to crack for Harte
IT was an emotional afternoon for Mickey Harte and his players when he first encountered Mayo as Tyrone senior manager. They were still coming to terms with the untimely passing of Cormac McAnallen, whom they had buried only two weeks earlier, and the League encounter in Castlebar was the first time they took to the field after losing their captain.
In the MacHale Park dressingroom, the players discovered there was a card from McAnallen’s parents waiting for them. They went out and honoured his memory by trouncing Mayo by nine points. In the 14 times that the two counties have met during Harte’s long tenure, that has been the largest margin of victory.
Teams don’t get tanked when these two meet. While only two of the 14 games have ended in deadlock, there has only been a point between the teams on four other occasions. No matter what seat these two occupy at football’s top table, there is rarely a sliver of light between Mayo and Tyrone.
And yet, there will be a sense of foreboding for those Red Hand supporters that wander up Gortin Road today. Last summer, the third Tyrone team which Harte has built was supposed to assert itself on the main stage. Their first Ulster title in six years was meant to be a springboard to greater things, but they walked straight into a Mayo ambush in Croke Park.
‘They have always proved to be a difficult challenge for us so we have to look at that and see if we can do something about it,’ Harte pointed out this week.
‘But we are within touching distance of them, even on the days when we lost to them. It is quite a while since we played them in Omagh, we have played them in Castlebar and Croke Park, obviously. So it will be interesting to see how we get on when we have them in Healy Park.’
The most astute GAA gamblers last summer were those that discovered Mayo were heavy underdogs before last August’s All-Ireland quarter-final. Harte has always had a so-so record against the county. In a time when most county teams have a defined, structured system of play, it seems that Mayo always leave Harte scratching his head.
Having beaten a resurgent Donegal in last year’s Ulster final, the men from the West are the one big puzzle left for Harte to figure out. Even at a time when the rest of Gaelic football seems to be in Dublin’s slipstream, Harte’s side appear capable of making Jim Gavin’s team unsure of themselves – as recent meetings between the two indicate.
But Mayo do something similar to Tyrone. There are parallels between both counties. Both football-mad and both possessing a conveyor belt that spits out some excellent underage talent. And Harte’s Under 21 side, which formed the foundation of the team that won Tyrone its first All-Ireland, had to see off Mayo in a fractious All-Ireland final in 2001.
Five years later, with Tyrone now sitting comfortably at the summit of Gaelic football, their respective Under-21 teams met again in an All-Ireland semifinal. After extra-time, a Mayo team that included Keith Higgins, Barry Moran and Seamus O’Shea, squeezed past a Tyrone team with Justin McMahon, Cathal McCarron and Colm Cavanagh in their ranks, and went on to claim the All-Ireland title.
In 2008, Peter Harte and Mattie Donnelly were in a Tyrone minor side that claimed the All-Ireland after beating Mayo, with Rob Hennelly, in a replay. Five years later, Mayo secured an All-Ireland minor title at the Ulster side’s expense.
The footballing DNA is similar. While there is clearly more structure to Tyrone’s play, the two counties have players who like to move the ball through their hands. But Tyrone have never frightened Mayo, never managed to get into their heads like they did with Kerry or Dublin in the noughties.
Following that 2004 League game, the counties met later in the summer for an All-Ireland quarter-final which Mayo won. And they would go four years without losing to Harte’s side.
Even last year, Mayo used an unexpected Championship win as the springboard to another near-miss in an All-Ireland final. In 2008, Tyrone’s one-point qualifier win, the only time Harte got the better of Mayo in Championship in four attempts, propelled them towards their third All-Ireland title.
Both counties have endured a difficult week, full of questions about where they are going. The Mayo need to rediscover themselves and there’s no opponent like Tyrone to bring the best out of them.
But if this latest Tyrone side are to prove credible contenders, no better way to do it than changing the record against their western nemesis.