Top marksman Harte sets his sights on Rangers

ON the bus down to Dublin, as St Mary’s focused on the game with Waterford IT, a game which offered the Belfast teacher-training college the chance of a Sigerson weekend for the first time in five years, Mark Harte travelled as a spectator.

Five days before his biggest game since the under-age glory years with Tyrone, Harte wasn’t going to risk injury for a Sigerson Cup game. It wasn’t what Paddy Tally, the Mary’s manager, needed. He had lost his

other star player, Ronan Clarke, to a groin strain. And now Harte. They reached a deal. If Mary’s got a penalty in the last minute, a vital penalty, would Harte come on and take it. The Errigal Ciaran star agreed, believing such a turn of events were, at the very least, highly unlikely.