Connor McAliskey: Past wins over Kerry mean nothing

Connor McAliskey believes that history is meaningless when it comes to Tyrone’s excellent record against Kerry in huge Championship games at Croke Park.

The barrel-chested corner-forward fired five crucial points on Saturday as the Red Hands secured an All-Ireland semi-final showdown with Kerry, a repeat of the 2005 and 2008 finals.

The August 23 encounter will also be a reprise of the 2003 semi-final when Tyrone first laid down their All-Ireland title credentials with a memorable win.

But McAliskey said the reality is that it’s a different Tyrone team now with only a couple of players still involved from that golden era.

“I remember sitting in the Hogan Stand or with friends on the Hill watching all those big games,” said McAliskey. “It is another historic game now, given what has gone in the past, but history doesn’t determine the future.

“We’ve got two weeks to prepare for playing Kerry and it’s just going to be another game of football.

“These are two different teams to those sides of the 2000s. You look at how young we are now, there wouldn’t be too many of boys who were even playing inter-county football at that stage.

“Kerry are obviously the All-Ireland champions and you only have to look at how well they’ve been playing, so we’ve got a huge job on our hands.” Tyrone have clearly benefited from the qualifier series of games, generating momentum with a settled bunch of players who appear to know exactly what is required in all sectors of the field.

“At the start of the year we planned to win Ulster and go the straight route but after Donegal we had to sit back and regroup and realise that we still weren’t that far away,” said McAliskey.

“Our aim was just to be playing football in August.” The positive vibes are in stark contrast to just months ago when Tyrone relinquished their Division 1 status in the Allianz league. Manager Mickey Harte said he had strong belief all along that they could recreate former glories.

“I think we are developing something good again but you can’t compare it to anything from the past until it does something of that nature,” said Harte. “We are in a decent place, we have hard-working players, we have talented players, they haven’t the experience of being winners at the top level just yet, so that’s the challenge.”