Tyrone are playing with the swagger of champions
THE often sugary and stuffy coverage of the recent Augusta Masters emphasised a truth that applies across the sporting board. They always make the point that, when you win a green jacket, you get to wear it even when the threads on the elbow have worn thin.
They don’t refer to previous winners as a ‘former’ Masters champion because once you are a Masters champion, you are always a Masters champion.
Now, it is safe to assume that thought was never verbalised inside a Jim Gavin dressing room and certainly there was no man foolish enough in our circle to air it in front of Páidí, Jack O’Connor, Pat O’Shea or Éamonn Fitzmaurice. Indeed, any January after an All-Ireland victory, the only visible residue of being a champion was the beery fat that you would be required to run off
The interpretation of being a champion – the one that you will find written on most sporting walls – was the one that Muhammad Ali used to preach: suffer now and you will live like a champion for life.
Yet, you can’t argue with the fact that once you are an All-Ireland champion, it can never be taken away from you.
Even in the GAA, it is not just careerchanging, it is life-changing, too.
People see you differently, just the same way that I see Tyrone this year.
They are pretty much the same team; in fact they have shed seven of last year’s panel and yet I see them as a better team because they are a Championship-winning one.
When Fermanagh busied themselves in the first half of the recent Ulster SFC clash, throwing the kitchen sink at them, they were hardly fazed, exuding calmness and control.
Of course, they did not have to acquire Celtic Crosses to beat a Division 3 team but winning big, like they have done, allows belief to surge through the group as well as individuals.
It delivers trust. It is hard to explain this but when I looked around our dressing room when we were in our pomp, the confidence and comfort I took from being surrounded by the same familiar faces, who had been through that full journey, may have been impossible to quantify – but it felt real.
When people talk about the calmness and composure of champions, that is exactly where it comes from. If we can pick the Tyrone team with our eyes closed from the outside, just imagine the sense of certainty and trust they have on the inside.
We were not able to pick that team so easily this time 12 months ago and you can be pretty certain their confidence levels back then were nowhere near where they are at now. It changes individual players too for the better and it took time for that realisation to dawn on me.
IN MY first few years on the Kerry team, I was ultra-cautious, my mindset going for almost every game was: ‘I must not f**k up here’, but after winning that first medal in 2004, my approach was totally different.
I played with a swagger that I did not think was possible and moved out to centre-back in 2005 – a prospect that would have filled me with absolute dread prior to winning that first All-Ireland.
Look closely at Tyrone and you can see the same transformative impact on some of their players.
It is easily forgotten, but right up to last year’s All-Ireland final, their Achilles heel was the perceived dysfunctionality of their midfield pairing of Brian Kennedy and Conn Kilpatrick.
I know that Kennedy ended up with an All-Star – one that I suspect owed more to Tyrone’s status as champions than his form throughout the season – and Kilpatrick had a powerful second half in the final, capped by a fine catch to set up that second goal, but he was not playing at a level you would trust.
Check him out this season and he is arguably been the most impressive and influential midfielder in the game.
His energy levels are off the radar, he is dropping back to take on catches on his own goal-line as he did against Fermanagh, when seconds later he was delivering the most exquisite 30metre foot pass to Darren McCurry for an offensive mark.
There is no way I could have imagined him doing that last year. But, then, last year he was not a champion.
I am not for a moment suggesting – and I can already hear the accusations of a Kerryman building up a title rival – that Tyrone are invincible, I am just saying they are a better team for winning the Sam Maguire.
Of course, with success comes danger, not least complacency, although I struggle to see how any team could lease off with Brian Dooher in their ear. They certainly have an issue in terms of the depth o f their panel, which was so instrumental to their success last year when Cathal McShane was pivotal in getting them over the line.
Right now, McShane probably merits starting on the bench as he needs to play his way into form, which he won’t do from the dugout.
Perhaps, Conor McKenna, excellent against Fermanagh and also a game-changer when coming on against Donegal last year, will be that impact player this time, or possibly even Mattie Donnelly.
Today’s game against Derry will not be without its difficulties, given that Rory Gallagher will travel to Omagh with an organised side still smarting from their failure to secure promotion to Division 1.
But don’t expect Tyrone to be fazed by a team coming to shoot them down.
True champions never are.