Colin Sheridan: Tyrone are not a football team, they are a state of mind

Tyrone’s Cathal McShane consoles Kerry’s Paudie Clifford after the All-Ireland SFC semi-final at Croke Park at the weekend. No team has hurt Kerry in the last 20 years like Tyrone. Picture: Inpho/James Crombie

A few weeks back while strolling the beautiful beaches of Belmullet with an old friend of blue-blooded football stock, we passed that new breed of youngsters carrying surfboards and six-packs. An air of admirable self-confidence preceded each of them, an air foreign to a couple of washed-up club footballers some ways beyond their prime.

“I wonder if they know how the Ulster final is going?” I asked my friend, hilariously. “There’s more chance one of those lads is called Tyrone Monaghan then there is them watching Tyrone/Monaghan”, he drily countered.

I guffawed, happy that, although those lads may be unburdened by the suffocating grip of a GAA summer, we — the real people of old Éire — the ones who knew the Ulster final was on but weren’t watching it — we were somehow worthier.

Tyrone Monaghan. Surfer. Philosophy student. Activist. Real Key and Peele stuff.

The joke was not on them, however, but us. Had we been true to our supposed cause, we would not have been walking the sandy beaches of Belmullet, but perched on a sofa, watching said Ulster final, trying to figure out why Tyrone remains one of the most compelling stories of contemporary Gaelic football. There was evidence aplenty on display that particular evening, as they resisted a Monaghan fightback. Instead, resigned to the inevitability of things, we chose to ignore it. Kerry would beat Tyrone. Dublin would beat Mayo. Then, some sort of prophecy would be fulfilled. Dublin would either expand their empire or Kerry, led by Messrs O’Shea and Clifford, would announce the arrival of a new order.

Regardless, there would be order.

We should have seen this one coming. In a year when truth has consistently been stranger than fiction, we were remiss to expect the second All-Ireland semi-final to buck the trend. The only predictable thing about it was the sheer madness of the proceedings. No team has hurt Kerry in the last 20 years like Tyrone. There are literal bloodlines running from father to son, entire lives lived by young men who know nothing of what Kerry are or were and, crucially, could not care less. 

There have been books written on the back of Tyrone’s utter indifference to tradition. Their defiance. The gargantuan chip on their persecuted shoulders. There should be another book written deconstructing Kerry’s dedication to hubris. For the last two years they have become the perfect working-from-home team, appearing on every Zoom call looking a million bucks and convincing us they were working their backsides off, meanwhile they couldn’t be arsed putting any trousers on. This was not a loss as much as it was an exposé. A deep dive episode of Panorama, laying bare an underbelly in Kerry so soft, it was Arsenal-like. More than that, it proved what so many of us were refusing to acknowledge — Tyrone are not a football team, they are a state of mind.

The fallout from this game barely made it past the Big Tree before becoming taking on a life of its own. Kerry, favourites, not just for this game but for an All-Ireland, actually had the match won a fortnight ago. It was within them to stand their ground and accept their rightful place in a final. There would have been much anger had that transpired, but little of it could justifiably be directed at them. The Covid issue was between Tyrone and the GAA. Kerry’s intervention to agree to play the game was their one true positive contribution to the tie, and it should not be undervalued. For all their overconfidence on the field, there is no way in hell Peter Keane and his players assumed Tyrone would be a soft touch. Agreeing to play was always fraught with peril. It should never be argued their magnanimity was their undoing. There were many other hills for them to die on, and die on them they did.

Kerry are only half the story. Tyrone travelled to the Kingdom mid-June and endured a 16-point hiding. Ten weeks later, they made Kerry look so naive as to be negligent in their defending and decision-making. That’s what the league is for. Eradicating naivety, right? Instead, the league became an exercise in posturing for Kerry. While others tailored and tinkered their way out of various conundrums, Kerry flexed their disco muscles. This morning, they must be smarting that flexing was folly. While teams like Mayo embrace chaos, Kerry capitulate in it. Tyrone got a whiff of their fear, and played to it. No better team.

Kerry’s dereliction in defending was compounded by heroic efforts from the Tyrone rearguard, best exemplified by the outstanding Pádraig Hampsey. The Kingdom’s indecision in attack was in stark contrast to Tyrone’s ruthlessness when it counted the most. Conor McKenna and the almost forgotten Cathal McShane complemented the endeavour of Ronan McNamee and Mattie Donnelly. Tyrone showed cohesion, Kerry gave a lesson in headlessness. It will be a long winter for them. For Tyrone, an opportunity of a lifetime beckons.

And, just like that, we have a final pairing virtually no one could’ve predicted. A mockery has been made of the importance of the league. A Division Two team and another who looked, at best, troublesome, have deservedly dethroned the defending champions and their heirs apparent. Two teams defined by defiance. Honesty of effort. Belief.

As social media lit up on Saturday night with quips about Tyrone’s miraculous powers of recovery, it masked a more pertinent point. They beat Kerry playing smart football. They played to their strengths. They ran till they dropped. They found a way when it looked certain to be beyond them. They did it for themselves, knowing the rest of us have long doubted them. Hell hath no fury like the red hand scorned. Mayo be warned.