Eamonn Fitzmaurice: ‘It should never have happened’

It became an iconic image, the day football changed forever. 

In the beaten Kerry dressing room afterwards, a bewildered Seamus Moynihan shook his head. “It was like Times Square out there. I don’t know, is that football now?”

The Kingdom, bidding to recover from the 2002 All-Ireland final defeat to first-time winners Armagh, were now facing a ravenous Tyrone side in the 2003 All-Ireland semi- final. Mickey Harte had his side ready to swarm on every Kerry possession, every breaking ball in order to suffocate the favourites and the game. The Red Hand had waited too long and were now determined to play football on their terms. New rules.

It worked a treat. Kerry were blithe and oblivious to the tectonic shift that Gaelic football was experiencing. Now, right out there on the hallowed ground of Croke Park, the green and gold was being beaten and bloodied, bullied and harassed in the shape of Eoin Brosnan under siege from eight Tyrone players. Morgan Treacy’s shot for the Inpho photographic agency would become the poster for a new football lexicon of swarm defence, blanket defence, turnovers and carpet ball.

But, according to Eamonn Fitzmaurice, Kerry’s centre-half back that day a dozen years ago, it should never have happened. Not that particular one anyway.

The current occupier of the Kingdom’s managerial hot seat is preparing to pit his wits against Harte in next Sunday’s All-Ireland semi-final, but still harks back to that bleak day for Kerry with a wince.

“I remember the ball was over there (as he gesticulates to an imaginary area under the Hogan Stand) and I was standing here at centre back like at out-half in rugby waiting for someone to throw the ball back. And I can still remember to this day Liam Hassett was absolutely all on his own, over near the Cusack Stand side and I was saying ‘If someone would please give me the ball I’ll kick it straight to Liam Hassett and he’ll go and at least get a point.’ But two or three of the lads decided to go and try break down those eight or nine Tyrone fellas and the rest is history and the famous pictures. It almost became a symbol of that team and maybe a symbol of where we were at the time.

“I think at that time Tyrone surprised us with their intensity and the way they set up but I think we are a lot better prepared for it nowadays because we come up against it a lot more often. Even in the club scene in Kerry there are teams that play similarly so lads are accustomed to it but in 2003, it was all pretty new.” Though no-one in Kerry would ever admit it, Tyrone have got under their skin. Jack O’Connor came as close as anyone to exposing the annoyance in the south-west at the “nouveau riche” attitude of the new breed of Ulster football winners. The Kingdom’s qualifier victory celebrations over Mickey Harte’s side in 2012 were disproportionate, to say the least.

Fitzmaurice might beg to be excluded from such attitudes and with some cause. A keen student of the game, he’d have mined plenty of tactical rough sketches from watching Tyrone. And he’s very wary of what they’ll bring to Croke Park next Sunday, describing them as “more defensive and more athletic” that Donegal in 2014.

“They are good players and they are comfortable on the ball. They are a good team well coached — sometimes I think teams that play defensively are doing it to hide inadequacies and they don’t have the skillset but all these Tyrone lads are natural footballers who play to a very strong system. It will be a great test of us and a huge challenge. We’ll really know where we are at on Sunday.

“There are a lot of similarities with ‘03. If you look back we had won a couple of All-Irelands and probably had more household names at that stage then they had. They had the likes of Peter Canavan and Brian Dooher and fellas that had been around for some time but they were coming with young vibrant teams at that time — Brian McGuigan, Stephen O’Neill and Cormac McAnallen all that gang, they came together. By beating us and going on to win the All-Ireland, the created their own legacy and history and they became a great team afterwards. This team is similar in ways. We obviously won the All-Ireland last year and maybe some of the Tyrone fellas might not be that well known yet but they are a serious, coming team.”

Fitzmaurice added: “When we have the ball we are going to have to commit enough numbers to make sure we are getting scores which will be a big challenge. At times Tyrone can get 12 or 13 men behind their own 45. Equally there is the balance of not leaving yourself wide open at the back.

“I’m sure it will be an interesting game and tactical and it will be a great test of us. Mickey Harte’s form has always been when you think he is going to do one thing he does another and I think there will be a couple of curve balls thrown by both teams.”