O’Connor and Harte like ships in night for a decade
THIRD CHAMPIONSHIP MEETING: Jack O'Connor and Mickey Harte will face each other for just the third time in Championship. Pic:©INPHO/James Crombie
Considering their stellar inter-county managerial careers have overlapped for 11 seasons, it’s a surprise that Sunday’s Sam Maguire Cup Group 1 game in Portlaoise will be only the third time Mickey Harte and Jack O’Connor have clashed in championship.
Once upon a time, each one would have measured themselves by the other. “Our journey didn’t take us into the path of Armagh or Tyrone, though,” Jack O’Connor wrote in his autobiography about his first senior All-Ireland success with Kerry 19 years ago. “We won, but deep down in our hearts in Kerry we don’t feel as if that 2004 All-Ireland took football back for us.”
Perhaps, there is part of them that still do judge themselves against each other and if O’Connor is keeping count he will know he can even the score this weekend.
Leading by eight points at half-time, Tyrone didn’t score for the entirety of the second half and yet it was enough to earn the win and reach the semi-finals with The Kingdom.
Another eight-point margin was recorded here only this time for Kerry. However, they tuned out towards the end and Tyrone were able to cut the gap to make the semi-finals on score difference ahead of the hosts.
One of the great All-Ireland finals, Tyrone solidified their status as a great team with a second Sam Maguire Cup 24 months after their first. A second SFC defeat for Kerry to Tyrone in three seasons, the loss prompted O’Connor to seek assistance from Ulster. He recalled in his book: “One day I travel to the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Dublin and meet with a very prominent northern football man who knows exactly what they do. (He has to remain nameless.) We sit for a few hours as he shows me drills, gives me ideas, opens up a new world of work to me. If you can lose an All-Ireland final on turnover ball, as we did last year, it makes sense to work as tightly as Tyrone and Armagh do on tackling and dealing with being tackled.”
Four up at the interval largely thanks to an early Colm Cooper goal, Kerry were playing second fiddle in the second half when Stephen O’Neill raised a green flag at the other end. With a late free, O’Neill was the matchwinner too.
In his autobiography, , Harte remembered the tension in the air. “There had been an edgy feel about Kerry all day. Over the years any conversations I had with Jack O'Connor were confined to a few chats on the odd All-Star trip or sharing a table at the All-Stars banquet. But Jack wasn't passing the salt on Sunday. Before the game, I strolled down the line to shake his hand as the ball was being thrown in. Jack was already locked into watching the game. He shook my hand, but his mind was elsewhere. That gave me an idea about his mindset for the day.”
Down 11 points at half-time, Harte ordered Tyrone to change jerseys, they won the second half and lost with a modicum of respect.
Up until Colm Cavanagh’s additional time goal, Kerry appeared to be on their way to victory despite Aidan O’Mahony having been sent off. However, they only had themselves to blame as they failed to score for the final 18 minutes.
Not that it was any sort of payback for the three big defeats in the 2000s given this was an ageing Tyrone side and the stage being a third-round qualifier but 24,370 were in the stadium to see Kerry win convincingly as Brian McGuigan was sent off and 17 yellow cards were shown. Paul Galvin’s emotional post-match interview and the warm reception for Harte from Kerry supporters following the game as they showed their sympathy on the tragic passing of his daughter Michaela the previous year. O’Connor refused to put too much emphasis on the result, insisting it was “just another step on the way”. Donegal knocked Kerry out of the championship in the subsequent quarter-final and O’Connor stepped down.
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