Harte rues missing stars

The introduction of Kildare attacker Pádraig Fogarty as an impact substitute proved critical in settling yesterday’s Division 2 league final and no one needed to remind Tyrone boss Mickey Harte about the importance of having quality personnel in reserve.

Harte has seen forward talents like Kyle Coney, Tommy McGuigan and Ronan O’Neill ruled out through injuries and their presence in Croke Park yesterday would certainly have been of assistance.

“Of course that’s a huge loss because quality scoring forwards are at a premium. To lose two of them and Tommy McGuigan to be out of the script as well. They are three quality forwards who’d be good forwards in any company. It is a big loss because that always drains your resources.”

Rather than focusing on his own side, Harte preferred to attribute the defeat to the superior play of Kildare.

“You’ll always look at these things and say, ‘Were we bad?’ But I think that would be doing a disservice to Kildare.

“Their finishing was excellent. I suppose that’s the best time to play your best football — when it’s getting you across the line. The ultimate thing that we probably didn’t play as well as we have done in many games this year but Kildare certainly were just a better team today.

“You could see from early on that we weren’t going to get goals very handy. They set themselves up very well to make that very difficult. Even though we made some surging runs in certain sections of the field we never really threatened the goals in one on ones. So I think the job Kildare set out to do they achieved really well and that’s life. We have to respect them for what they did.”

Despite defeat, Harte is in a positive frame of mind after securing promotion and turning his focus towards the championship.

“It’s always a setback when you lose, of course it is. But you know a winning streak doesn’t go on forever. I prefer it wouldn’t come to an end out there of course but we now face the Ulster championship.

“That’s the next competition we have to get ready for and maybe that experience will serve us well as we go into the Ulster championship. I wouldn’t have chose it as a way ofgoing in there to the summer. But it’s better now that we’re promoted and it doesn’t impact on that.

“I’m very pleased with the squad and their performance to date across the year. We can’t let one game like today dismiss all the work that we’ve done. The experience that these players have gained across those matches will stand to them in the long term. Indeed defeats like this will stand to them as well. You’d never choose for it to happen but there’s a lot to be learned. In the past we’ve learned an awful lot from defeats and defeats in finals.”