Jury still out on Tyrone despite win over Sligo
The sight of Mickey Harte and his Tyrone team in an All-Ireland quarter-final is nothing new. This routine defeat of Sligo on Saturday afternoon has brought to ten the number of such appearances they will have made now in the 13 seasons the man has been in charge.
Five of those were chalked up in his first half-dozen campaigns, but the frequency of their visits to HQ in August has slowed only slightly since they claimed the last of their three All-Ireland titles in 2008. Five times in the intervening years they have made the last eight.
Not a bad strike rate.
The difference in Tyrone since ’08, of course, is in their inability to progress beyond that last mezzanine level and make it on to the summit. Though they made semi-finals in 2009 and 2013, their recent experiences in August tell us a revealing tale.
Cork, Dublin (twice) and Mayo have all had their number in the All-Ireland series, the deficits ranging between five and ten points. Their two quarter-final victories were claimed against Kildare and Monaghan: fellow occupiers of that landing just below the game’s upper tier.
The question now is: what has changed? Has anything? Is this a Tyrone side capable of making the last stride through to September or are we destined to see them fall frustratingly short again against one of the market leaders?
“Over the last couple of years we had people who were getting towards the end of their careers (but were) still very good footballers,” said Harte.
“You needed their experience, but you also felt they didn’t have 70 minutes of hard running in them. Maybe that has filtered out a bit and we are at the end of that spectrum with younger and fresher men coming in and, at the same time, we still have a degree of experience. So maybe we have a greater capacity to play a high intensity game for a longer period because of the personnel now.”
He may have something there. The last time Tyrone reached this stage, in 2013, they were still starting Stephen O’Neill and Conor Gormley. Sean Cavanagh and Joe McMahon were starters, too, as was Pascal McConnell.
Only Cavanagh and McMahon remained from that generation two days ago and, coincidence or not, it was the youthful pace and the precision of Tyrone’s attacking game that caught the eye against the defeated Connacht finalists who, it must be noted, are a Division Three outfit. For half a decade and more now we have been waiting for Tyrone’s next generation to bloom on the back of noteworthy underage successes and, in Darren McCurry at the weekend, the Red Hands had the personification of a belated but welcome maturation.
McCurry was almost flawless in front of goal from play and dead balls. Eight points he landed and, in the likes of young Mark Bradley and Connor McAliskey, he had more to look to for in terms of dependable support than the wily Cavanagh brothers when facing goal.
Tyrone rarely looked troubled by Sligo whose defensive opaqueness was exposed time and again by the Ulster side’s systematic running game and the only wonder was that they didn’t claim at least one of the three golden goal chances they engineered throughout the 70-plus minutes.
Harte said as much and remarked that, though they are doing a lot right, he was still discerning a tendency to take the wrong option at times.
That would surely come back to haunt them against Monaghan who will afford his players far less room and time to think. Still, it was more than enough here. Up 0-12 to 0-6 at the break, they stalled in the third quarter but kicked for home with a quintet of unanswered points that made the last ten minutes redundant. How much of a prep it proves to be for Saturday is another thing.
“I would hope there is more to come because that won’t be enough to win any serious stuff,” Harte said. “We need to get better.” A familiar refrain. The jury remains out.
M Breheny (0-7, 0-3 frees); P Hughes (0-3); A Marren (0-2 frees); D Kelly and N Murphy (both 0-1).
D McCurry (0-8, 0-3 frees and 1 ‘45’); S Cavanagh and M Donnelly (both 0-3); M Bradley (0-2); C McAliskey, C Cavanagh, P Harte and R Brennan (all 0-1); N Morgan (0-1 free).
A Devaney; D Maye, K Cawley, R Donovan; E Flanagan, B Curran, B Egan; S Gilmartin, C Breheny; N Ewing, M Breheny, N Murphy; A Marren, P Hughes, D Kelly.
K McDonnell for C Breheny (34); J Hynes for Gilmartin (56); C Davey for Ewing (58); L Bree for Maye (63); K Sweeney for Hughes (69).
N Morgan; R McNabb, R McNamee, A McCrory; T McCann, Joe McMahon, R Brennan; C Cavanagh, M Donnelly; S Cavanagh, P Harte, C Meyler; M Bradley, C McAliskey, D McCurry.
C McCann for Meyler (49); P McNulty for Bradley (58); Justin McMahon for Joe McMahon (60); D McBride for C Cavanagh and R O’Neill for McAliskey (both 63); C Clarke for Donnelly (69).
R Hickey (Clare).
Sligo had kept their hopes alive through to the midway point of the second-half only for Tyrone to rattle off the next five points and open a 10-point lead.
The sight of Tyrone in an All-Ireland quarter-final is routine enough, but are they any better built to go all the way to September? The jury is still out.
Reporters are often left in the dark after sitdowns with managers, but rarely to such a literal degree as was the case on Saturday when the lights failed for the first few minutes of Niall Carew’s post-match conference.
Sean Cavanagh got the official nod. Don’t ask us how. Darren McCurry was clearly the deserving recipient. Eight points from play and dead balls, he finally looks like the forward everyone expected he could be.
Sligo again ignored the sweeper option, as against Mayo, but the ease with which Tyrone ran through them was startling.
Rory Hickey had to show a number of yellow cards to Sligo men as the Connacht side repeatedly resorted to foul means to stem the white tide. Cynical? Desperate, more like it.
Tyrone resume contact with a fellow Ulster side in Monaghan for the first time since their preliminary round loss to Donegal in Ballybofey and two years since they overcame the Farney county by two points. Remember Cavanagh’s tackle?
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
