Tomás McGregor... and how to turn from champs to chumps
THERE is a great saying that if you think twice before speaking, you will speak twice the better for it. On this page last week, I wrote about how Tyrone looked like a team who were playing with the certainty and confidence that only champions know.
A couple of hours later they were made to look like chumps by Derry, who simply came out on top in every area – in head-to-head battles, in organisation, in execution and, above all, in desire.
Hands up, I did not see that coming and anyone blessed with the insight that did should be on a sun lounger in Barbados rather than the nine-to-five treadmill.
But in trying to explain how becoming a Championship-winning team can transform the mindset within a dressing room by creating a winning culture, I neglected to point out that it can also spoil a team if you allow it to happen.
It is only of value when you remember the golden rule – champions don’t show up to get everything they want, they show up to give everything they have.
Without that mindset, you are just another player with a medal in your pocket.
I don’t think there is a Tyrone player that can stand in front of the mirror this week and honestly say they passed that test.
It is a good thing to have that sense of being a champion when you can take the good parts from it, but it is debilitating if it infects you with a sense of entitlement.
I wrote last week about how I felt it improved our dressing room, but there were times when it bit us in the backside, too.
If you asked me the biggest regret about the All-Ireland we left behind, I would pick a year when we failed to get near the final.
In 2010, we were dogged by discipline issues, Paul Galvin picked up a ban for fish-hooking Cork’s Eoin Cadogan, while my brother Tomás carried himself like a man auditioning to be Kerry’s version of Conor McGregor in the Munster final against Limerick.
In the end, we were without our two most aggressive middleeight players when we ran into a feisty but, and I don’t mean to be disrespectful, average Down team in the All-Ireland quarter-final.
We were kicking our heels by the August holiday weekend, fuming because we felt we left a Championship behind us, but we deserved no better.
Those breaches of discipline were part of a mindset where we had forgotten what made us winners.
We were reacting because we allowed that entitlement culture to seep in. How dare you hit me like that. Don’t you know who I am and what I have done? No one likes to
admit they are thinking like that, but actions always speak louder than words.
And, right now, Tyrone might as well be articulating those thoughts through a megaphone.
I’m not taking anything away from Derry because they were excellent and would be a Division 1 team now but for a debatable refereeing call that saw Shane McGuigan sent off against Roscommon.
However, Tyrone were wretched, lacking completely in the intensity that defined their run to the Sam Maguire Cup glory last year, while their indiscipline has become a major issue.
In nine games, they have had eight players sent off and, while four of those were in the League tie with Armagh, that stat will surely horrify Brian Dooher and Feargal Logan because it implies a distracted mindset. Those red cards are a cocktail of unnecessary displays of macho posturing, mindless petulance and frustration.
The most damaging one was the straight red shown to Brian Kennedy which summed up the thought process of a player unable to cope with being challenged.
Gareth McKinless was the best player on the pitch in that opening quarter, all over Kennedy like a rash and, in the end, it was too much for the All-Star midfielder.
Last year, Kennedy would not have responded like that – he would have bunkered down and found a response because back then he was playing for his place on the team and not a defending champion.
The question now is can Tyrone get out of this self-made hole?
Of all counties, they are the last I would write off, especially with their track record through the back door. In a way, this could be the best thing to happen them.
They have five weeks to reset, provided they are not included in a draw for a preliminary-round qualifier, if one is required.
That is the same time frame they were afforded last year after being dismissed as a team in a heap when they were mauled by Kerry in that League semi-final in Killarney before starting out in the Championship, and we all know how that turned out.
Their problem is that key players such as Kieran McGeary, Cathal McShane, Ronan McNamee and Pádraig Hampsey are nowhere near the level they were at last year and they have to find their game quickly.
If the team leaders can find that, it can have a transformative impact on everyone else.
History informs that Tyrone rally to a cause – which might also explain why they have never staged a successful All-Ireland defence – and certainly the manner of their exit in Ulster, and the criticism it has invited, has gifted them that.
However, if some of the seven players who have quit the panel since last year did so because they had achieved what they wanted, how many more are thinking the same way without walking?
That will be of major concern to the Tyrone management.
The red cards are a cocktail of posturing, petulance and frustration