Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
BLANKET PROTEST
Harte: Who says we are all about defence? Just look at the Croke Park scoreboard
MICKEY Harte reckons it’s time for those who think Tyrone are all about blanket defending to wise up.
The Red Hands are poised for a semi-final clash with Dublin – arguably the most attacking team of all time.
And Dubs boss Jim Gavin has consistently pointed out what he thinks of Tyrone’s tactics.
Gavin said after February’s league draw with Tyrone that: “From the off they tried to close it out and then counter-attack. That is the style of football they play.”
But Tyrone are second in the scoring table of this year’s eight All-ireland quarter-finalists and smashed Armagh for 3-17.
Even free scoring Kerry haven’t averaged as much as Tyrone.
Long serving manager Harte said: “That’s true. Maybe one of these days we’ll not be seen as a defensive team.”
And the three-time All-ireland winning manager criticised those who claim his team haven’t been tested either.
He said: “People will always find some reason why someone or something isn’t as good as everybody thinks they are.
“People have to have a reason to say, ‘this can’t be true’ or ‘these boys can’t be as good as it appears by scorelines’.
“And that may yet prove to be the case. But we can only do what we’re doing and right now we’ve done what we’ve done in our four games in the Championship and it’s got us to a decent place, an All-ireland semi-final.
“Whether that takes us any further, God only knows. But we’ll
keep giving it our best shot.”
Tyrone and Dublin have yet to meet in the Championship in the Jim Gavin era. But over five league meetings in that period Tyrone are just one point behind overall, winning in 2013 and drawing in 2015 and 2017.
Harte insisted they’ll have to give a much better display than what they showed on Saturday.
Harte said: “You’d have to admit we wouldn’t be particularly happy with how we got into that position. We stumbled our way into that lead.
“We didn’t play with poise or real quality, we just picked off some scores. And the penalty was significant and getting that meant we had a good cushion.
“But we wouldn’t have been happy with that first-half performance. Yes the scoreboard was grand and as long as we won the second-half the game was ours but we would be unhappy with much of our play.
“That’s not playing down the thing. The start of the second-half I’m sure was horrible to watch. It was a case of who could give the ball away the quickest and the easiest.
“If we were playing against someone else that had more of a grip on the game, that would be a disaster.”
Colm Cavanagh opened the scoring for Tyrone but limped off close to the hour mark with a knock.
Harte said: “Colm got a bang on the hip. Hopefully it’s nothing more than that.
“He’s a serious operator and I’d hate to be going out for any game without him. He’s gold dust to our team.”