Kerry tactics play into Harte’s hands
Revealing that he had decided “a few weeks ago” to move Joe McMahon from wing-forward to corner-back to curb the influence of Walsh, the Tyrone boss said he only informed the squad of his plans on Thursday.
Harte said he felt Kerry had become “a little bit of a slave” to the long, quick ball into the full-forward line since Donaghy first started to play there.
“When they got Tommy Walsh in I felt they were taking a bit more variety to their game. I was surprised that they persisted so long with something that wasn’t being as effective as they would have hoped.’’
With former captain Peter Canavan and others praising him for his tactical wisdom, Harte said he was always satisfied that Justin McMahon (6-3) would cope “fairly well” with Donaghy’s height and presence. But he felt he needed another defender with “that presence and a bit of experience at that particular end of the field.”
“We had other kinds of cover and other defenders, but it was ‘horses for courses.’ We needed a certain man for a certain job and we had to think long and hard about it because we were upsetting what was a good working half-forward line. And that was another gamble!
“We felt we were going to be bombarded with long ball and high ball because there was a perception out there that we were vulnerable in the full-back line. I didn’t necessarily agree with that, but we had to make sure it wasn’t going to be a factor. It was a question of giving us a footballing physical presence.’’
He delayed telling the players until three days before the game because he didn’t want “to dishearten them”, he explained. And, for tactical reasons, they didn’t make them public.
“Why should we show our hand? Why would we necessarily give people time to think of what we were doing,’’ he said.
Canavan felt that from a tactical point of view it was felt that Harte was going to have “more work to do” in selecting his team than Pat O’Shea — because if he left it the way it was he was going to have to make adjustments.
“That was going to have a key bearing on the game no matter what he decided to do,’’ he commented.
And, he agreed that switching Joe McMahon was indeed a gamble because in his view nobody had handled more ball around midfield in recent games than him.
“It was a risk taking him out of that sector, but the two boys dealt with the high ball brilliantly. Once again, the calls that Mickey made came off for him. As I expected the boys didn’t wilt and it was a credit to the management from a fitness point of view that the players were able to maintain their effort for 70 minutes.’’
Mark Conway, formerly of Club Tyrone and the man behind the movement which opposed the government grant scheme, believes Harte has proved himself the “greatest manager of all time”.
“I know we’re biased but we just think he is on a different planet,’’ he said.
Justin McMahon, meanwhile, was finding it hard to convince himself that he had won an All-Ireland medal, recalling the buzz he got from running on to the field in 2005 to celebrate another famous victory over the Kingdom.
For the 22 year-old student, who only established himself in the team this year, holding Donaghy scoreless and hearing talk of him as a possible Allstar winner was secondary to actually being on a winning team.
“It’s completely different, because you are ‘involved’ in the game. As a fan you go through so many emotions but when you are playing you can be in control of things. At the same time it was just pure relief and pure elation that we did it,’’ he said.
And for all the recognition himself and his brother had received, he stressed that “a lot of the credit” had to go to the players further out the field because of the effectiveness of their tackling: “They definitely made our job a lot easier. It reduced the quality of the ball coming in.
“You always had to be on your guard. With the quality of their inside forward line, they had the capability to change the game in a split second.’’
And he was convinced that was going to happen late in the game when replacement goalkeeper Paschal
McConnell denied Declan O’Sullivan with a marvellous save.
“I don’t think I’ll ever know how he got to the ball. I had a good view of it and I thought it was maybe going into the net,’’ he said. “We’ll be forever grateful that he pulled it off.’’
