O’Connor and Harte like ships in night for a decade

Jack O'Connor and Mickey Harte will face each other for just the third time in championship when their sides face each other in the final group game on Sunday.

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 Keys To The Kingdom 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.”