Big performance was brewing beneath the surface, says Harte

TYRONE played like All-Ireland champions yesterday and Mickey Harte took plenty of time afterwards to play down the chances of his team winning the Sam Maguire for the third time in five seasons.

Admitted the All-Ireland winning boss: “That performance was obviously brewing somewhere under the surface. You don’t know where and when it is going to come out but I still have belief in the quality and character of players that we have around us in Tyrone at the minute. Sooner or later that will come to the fore.”

But the Tyrone chief was quick to add a caveat. “We would want to be very careful though,’’ he said. ‘‘We weren’t world-beaters before today and we’re not world-beaters now.

‘‘We have one good result behind us so we have to keep that in perspective. Going into this match no-one would have predicted that, not us, not Donegal, not you people in the media.”

You can’t blame his caution. As Ryan McMenamin pointed out, four years have passed since Tyrone have won an Ulster title.

The provincial prize may have meant little to Armagh this year but there are any number of men in the Tyrone panel yet to claim that Ulster medal.

“As the game evolved, Tyrone were playing high-class stuff but we can not get carried away,” said Harte. “There is a good performance there. We didn’t win any titles today and Derry and Monaghan are sitting up there saying ‘Tyrone have shown their hand’ and wondering if Tyrone will be able to rise to that level again. I don’t know. We will see.”

But what of Donegal? Superb all spring, they scrambled past Armagh but yesterday was a bridge too far.

“They have had a long season,” Harte agreed. “They have put a huge effort into the season since way back in the autumn. Donegal can be quite happy that they will learn a lot from this game. They are not out of the chase altogether. They are still in the championship and that is the beauty of this qualifier system.”

How appealing the qualifier route will be for Donegal is a moot point. A win yesterday and they would have been just 70 minutes from an elusive Ulster title.

The road to September is much longer and less appealing.

Was Harte right though? Did their exertions in winning the league take too much out of them? Did they peak too early?

“It’s hard to know,” said Donegal boss Brian McIver. “We looked tired, there is no doubt but you have to give the credit to Tyrone.

‘‘That is as good a performance as I have seen anybody put up in a long time. We have to get back to the drawing board.

“You allow for the intensity of Armagh’s game but we talked all along about how Tyrone’s mobility was going to be a big factor in this game. We couldn’t get a grip on the game at all.”

They weren’t helped by the two penalty decisions that went against them in the first half when the cause was far from a lost one but McIver refused to grasp at such a thin straw after a game where they had ended up 11 points behind their victors.

“There’s no point in moaning when you look at the scoreboard,’’ he said. ‘‘We scored a goal shortly after the penalty we didn’t get. I thought their penalty was very harsh. I’m only judging it from what I saw on the sideline but Tyrone were excellent.”