Harte shocked at Cats’ defeat

Mickey Harte has never been slow to harvest information, lessons and warnings from other sports, and the Tyrone manager absorbed another timely nugget ahead of Saturday’s visit to Roscommon.

A regular attendee at the All-Ireland hurling final, Harte took in Sunday’s Leinster SHC final from the comfort of his sofa and was as taken aback as anyone by the manner of Galway’s surprise victory and Kilkenny’s shock defeat.

“People talk about the Kilkenny method of winning but Galway applied themselves in the manner that Kilkenny normally do. Getting the early scores was good for their confidence and the longer Kilkenny went without a score, it became a matter of damage limitation. That seems strange to say about Kilkenny but for them to come back like they did in the second half shows just how good they are and they are not out of the race for the Liam MacCarthy Cup yet.”

Tyrone will carry short odds this weekend when they take on Des Newton’s Rossies side in Dr Hyde Park in the second round of the football qualifiers and he believes the form guide of both teams gives lie to such an unattractive price.

After all, Roscommon will come to the game having taken care of an Armagh side that Tyrone squeezed past a few weeks previously in Ulster.

“Everyone expected Armagh to win against Roscommon,” said Harte who was promoting the eircom GAA Championship Challenge yesterday. “Roscommon were a Division Three team this year and they were playing a side that had been in Division One and no-one expected a Roscommon win after the way they went down to Galway in Connacht. So that win will have given them serious confidence and they will look at our game against Armagh in Ulster, which was very close, and think logically that if they can beat Armagh, they can beat us.”