Mickey Harte wary of Cork team that ‘will want to kick back’
Tyrone will bid to secure a first-ever championship win over Cork when they face off in this Saturday’s fourth-round qualifier.
The counties, pitted against one another in yesterday morning’s draw, have met in the championship on only two previous occasions. Both were All-Ireland semi-finals, 1973 and 2009, both were won by Cork. Colm O’Neill, Paul Kerrigan and Donncha O’Connor are the three survivors, on the Cork side, from that most recent championship clash nine years ago.
Where Tyrone fare better is their qualifier record: The Red Hand County, under Mickey Harte, have never lost a final-round qualifier, progressing to the All-Ireland quarter-final, via the backdoor, in 2004, ’05, ’08, ’11, ’13 and ’15.
Cork, meanwhile, have struggled at this hurdle in recent years, losing their fourth-round qualifier in 2015, ’16 and ’17. The Rebels face a massive challenge to resurrect their summer, at Tyrone’s expense, following their 17-point Munster final hammering at the hands of Kerry.
Harte believes Ronan McCarthy’s side are much better than what they offered up during the 3-18 to 2-4 defeat to Kerry. A place in the Super 8s and, in the process, a home fixture against the Dubs is the prize at stake in Portlaoise this weekend.
Maybe that’s where the sting in the tail is for us, that [Cork] will want to kick back with something to raise the standard up to what they know they’re capable of playing and, if they do that, I think it will take a really good performance to beat them,” said Harte.
“We would have to look more at what they did against Tipperary than what they did against Kerry. They didn’t do themselves justice against Kerry in the final, whereas they had very good form against Tipperary, and we know that Tipperary is no bad team either. So we have to be on our guard.”
Harte added: “We always found them a difficult team to deal with, so we have to be very conscious of our record against them. It wouldn’t be pretty, and we know that this is the all-important game.
Cork always feel good meeting Tyrone. I think they feel Tyrone is a team that they can manage, that they can handle. That’s the challenge for us; we have to meet them knowing that that’s their mentality and knowing that we have to be really good to overcome that.
The opening fixture at O’Moore Park on Saturday is the meeting of Armagh and Roscommon. Kieran McGeeney’s charges, for the second year-in-a-row, have bounced back from an early exit in Ulster to string together three consecutive qualifier wins to put themselves within 70 minutes of a spot in the final eight.
Roscommon, like Cork, have stuttered and stumbled with an All-Ireland quarter-final berth in sight. The county hasn’t won a fourth-round qualifier since 2003, losing three in the interim.
Elsewhere, Kildare, brimming with confidence following their surprise win over Mayo at the weekend, are aiming to go one better than last year having fallen to Armagh in this very round. Their opponents, Fermanagh, are bidding to progress to the All-Ireland quarter-final for the fourth time.
On Sunday, Laois and Monaghan do battle in Páirc Tailteann. John Sugrue’s Laois are hoping to overcome the trend whereby the beaten Leinster finalists fail to recover from being crushed by Dublin in time for the qualifiers. In the past eight years, no county which fell to Dublin in the provincial decider won their subsequent fourth-round qualifier.
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