Harte set on closing gap at top in Ulster

It wasn’t that long ago that they talked of a big two in Ulster, a closed shop comprising Mickey Harte’s Tyrone and Armagh.

At different points, Fermanagh, Monaghan and even Antrim popped up to challenge that established order but Donegal, well, Harte didn’t worry about them too much when he was collecting his county’s first three All-Ireland titles.

As he faces into 2013, however, and the greatest challenge of his career, to win another All-Ireland with a new Tyrone team, the Errigal Ciaran man accepts they have slipped very much into Donegal’s slipstream.