The day Tyrone brought Kerry to its knees

By their own own admission, Kerry were “out-fought and out-thought” by Tyrone in the All-Ireland semi-final. Jim O’Sullivan reflects on Mickey Harte’s 2003 masterplan to bring the Kingdom to its knees.

MICKEY HARTE knew months in advance of Tyrone’s 2003 All-Ireland semi-final with Kerry how he would plan his strategy. His priorities included limiting the influence of Darragh Ó Sé at midfield and closing off the supply of ball to Colm Cooper - the latter achieved by half-forwards “tracking” back to help out the defence.

In his book, “Kicking Down Heaven’s Door”, Harte revealed how he studied a tape of Kerry’s League game against Dublin - and how he decided on their tactical approach.

Pointing out that Seamus Moynihan “drove forward repeatedly” from centre-back to set up attacking moves, he noted that Dublin left a “huge hole” in middle of their defence. “We’ve got to guard against that. Our half-forwards have to be tenacious in their tackling. They’ve got to close things down before they begin. We have got to put pressure around the middle of the field because they will win ball through Darragh Ó Sé. That’s the game plan.”

He also referred to current team captain Brian Dooher scoring a point and then tracking back to block Colm Cooper - a tactic that was to help smother Kerry’s championship challenge. Páidi Ó Sé and his players may have been caught off guard, but Tyrone had perfected the art of the “blanket defence” much earlier.

They had played 2002 All-Ireland champions Armagh back in March and beat them by copying their style. Harte wrote in his diary: “I think Armagh were surprised by our tenacity and collective tackling. They played like that themselves last year, but they weren’t expecting it from a team like Tyrone.”

In preparation for the All-Ireland semi-final, Harte and his television analyst Pete Quinlivan studied video footage of Kerry’s win over Roscommon. They concluded that Kerry employed a “very effective but very one-dimensional method”.

“They don’t look to hit (ball to) Mike Frank Russell and Colm Cooper in the corners. Instead they wait for them to make the run from the corner into the D (space) and then look to hit them with the diagonal ball. Kerry are better at it than anyone in the game, it’s served them well. It’s probably the way football should be played, but we’re cutting it out,” he wrote.

“If Cooper and Russell do get ball, we have to put pressure on them. They cannot be allowed to have a good look at the posts because if they do it’s already a point. We’ve identified a few key men and they’re two of them. The others are Dara Ó Cinnéide, Moynihan and Darragh Ó Sé. We want to stop them finding Ó Sé with their kick-outs. When Declan O’Keeffe is taking a kick-out, we want fellows coming across Ó Sé’s line. If we allow him a free run-up, he’ll just do what he did to us in Killarney.”

Harte said that Gerard Cavlan won almost every one of O’Keeffe’s kick- outs, commenting that O’Keeffe “kept looking for Ó Sé and kept finding” Cavlan.

“It gave us the chance to run at them which we always wanted to do and we ended up either going on and scoring from play or forcing them to drag us down and concede the free.”

Referring to the forced withdrawal of Peter Canavan through injury as a “massive downside”, Harte recalled a passage of play shortly afterwards where they “just swarmed” Kerry for about 40 seconds - although at the time it seemed like four minutes.

“I think it was Dara Ó Cinnéide we cornered first. Then Eamonn Fitzmaurice was swamped, then it was Eoin Brosnan and then it was Darragh O Se. In fairness to the Kerry boys they kept coming back and they must be thought they were away with it a few times. The crunch came when Darragh Ó Sé got the ball. He did well to shoulder a few of our fellows but in the end he just threw his foot at it as if to say, ‘I can’t hack any more of this’ and it ended up straight to Brian Dooher.’’

During the interval break, the players were reminded how Tyrone lost an eight points advantage to Kerry in the 1986 final. The message was that the best way to defend their lead of 0-9 to 0-2 was “to attack it”. A week later, Harte wrote: “It’s as if we’ve been totally negative and brutal in our task. I really think on reflection that was not the case. People are going on as if it’s the end of Gaelic football as we know it. I’m disappointed at the Kerry chairman suggesting that we might have to introduce the mark and change the rules. The simple thing is for Kerry to change their mindset and innovate like they have done so often in the past.’’

And, on “blanket defence” he had this to say: “I’ve always advocated that our half-forwards defend. How come no one complained during the League. Why shouldn’t our half-forwards defend. The first rule on our team is that when your man has the ball, you must be present to that man. If our half-forwards do that, then often it will take them back into their own half of the field.

“In the last ten years or so there’s been the emergence of overlapping half-backs (mentioning Moynihan, among others). People have looked at that and said, ‘that’s great’. It seems now that there is a proviso to that, ‘only if they’re allowed up alone’. I don’t go along with that.

“The cost should be that the half-forward tracks that half-back all the way. When that tracking is done, he’s ready to be a forward again, instead of saying, ‘wasn’t I good to do that. I’ll stay here.’”

* Kicking Down Heaven’s Door, Diary of a Football Manager, Mickey Harte, with Kieran Shannon, is published by All-Star Print Ltd.