A lot done, more to do, insists Harte

MICKEY HARTE had the air of a satisfied man as he emerged to meet the assembled press underneath the Gerry Arthurs Stand.

More than that, he had the look of a man on a mission, an individual who has achieved more than any other manager in the modern era, and who wants more, and more.

Harte insists back-to-back titles in the aim. “It’s what we said at the start of the year we wanted to do, and it was a daunting enough task at the beginning. And it has got no less daunting, because every team we came up against gave us a lot of bother, and we came out with the right result,” said the Errigal Ciaran man.

“We’ll enjoy it. It’s a good feeling inside, but I don’t think we should be swinging from the rooftops because of it.

“It’s a nice thing to have, an Ulster senior title, we’ll always remember that in 2009 Tyrone won it, but there’s more to be done, and anybody that’s in the position we’re in and have been for the past number of years, we have to set our sights higher.

“If we don’t set them higher, then we’ll be content with less, and at this moment in time we want to set them as high as possible.”

But he paid tribute to a battling Antrim side that was still going strong right at the end.

“Today Antrim lived up to their billing going into this game. They were very determined to win it and believed in themselves

“While we were in a strong position, we have been in this position against other teams before, and we were able to push on and kill the game off.

“We couldn’t do that today. They kept us going to the very end, and they kept the game alive to the very end. That’s respect to Antrim, and if they play that kind of football then they will be a handful for whoever they meet in the Qualifiers.”

The Tyrone boss admitted that his side always looked to be in control, but insisted that he could never rule out an Antrim revival.

“It always looked like we probably could win the game, but it always equally looked line Antrim were going to pose a threat, and I suppose if they had got a goal at any stage and narrowed the gap, then they would have been a very difficult team to deal with, because they kept coming back from positions that looked like they should have taken a beating, so to speak, and they didn’t do that.

“They kept coming back right to the very end, and we had to work to the very end.”

One of Harte’s charges, Conor Gormley pocketed his third Ulster medal at Clones yesterday.

The Carrickmore man went into the game with more Celtic Crosses than provincial prizes, but this one will go into a treasured collection that just keeps growing.

Now the Tyrone defender wants to add to the haul with a fourth All-Ireland, and he faces into a quarter-final tie in a fortnight with his ambition undiluted by the passage of time and the trappings of success. “I heard a man saying one time that all the medals he had won at club level meant nothing to him because he was still playing.

“You can sit back and look at all the medals you have, but when you’re still playing, you want to keep winning.

“I think that’s the motivation, you want to be a winner all the time,” said Gormley.

“Personally that’s the motivation for myself, to be a winner all the time, to be here standing in Clones on Ulster final day and to see Brian Dooher and Ryan Mcmenamin go up the steps. For the whole panel to be winners is a big motivation.”

Antrim competed with the hunger and enthusiasm that everybody knew they would, and as the game slipped into its closing stages, their colourful supporters in the crowd of 32,632 still harboured hope, however slim.

Paddy Cunningham was scoring for fun, but each time he posted another point in his haul of 11, Tyrone were able to respond and punish.

“When the pressure was on, we were able to retaliate with scores, through Sean (Cavanagh), and Brian Dooher stepped up to the plate and we got scores at crucial times just when we needed them. That took the pressure off and I think that was the difference,” said Gormley.

His desire for another Sam Maguire triumph is there for all to see, but he refuses to allow himself to become complacent or overly confident.

“We have a quarter-final to play first, we can’t get carried away. There’s a lot of things to look at from this game, positive and negative, so we’ll sit down and look at that.

“Mickey (Harte) will run through the video and we’ll all look at it together. We can’t get carried away.

“Okay, we’re in a quarter-final, that’s where we want to be, but we haven’t set the championship alight, so we have a lot to improve on, but glad to be in a quarter-final, that’s the main thing.”