Loyal wingman Devlin like another son to Mickey Harte

The three-time All-Ireland winning manager opened up about his rock-solid relationship with his former player who he he believes is the best coach around.

Derry manager Mickey Harte, left, celebrates with selector Gavin Devlin after their side's penalty shoot-out victory in the Allianz Football League Division 1 final. Pic: Piaras Ó Mídheach, Sportsfile

Derry boss Mickey Harte says wingman Gavin Devlin is the best coach he’s encountered in Gaelic football and is ‘as good as another son to me’.

The three-time All-Ireland winning manager opened up about his rock-solid relationship with his former player who he has worked alongside in three different counties for over a decade.

Harte and Devlin directed Tyrone together before moving on to Louth and inspiring a revival there, eventually jettisoning the Wee County to answer Derry’s call.

They’ve had an instant impact with an already high-functioning team, winning both competitions they’ve entered in 2024 - the McKenna Cup and the National League - and their bid for a three-in-a-row of Ulster SFC crowns will begin against Donegal on Saturday.

“Gavin Devlin is the common denominator here,” said Harte, pointing to the coaching teams he’s been involved with and their successes. “He is a coach like... I’ve never seen anyone as good as him, that’s the truth. What he knows about the game... people think that because he played in defence himself that he is kind of the defence man, that he’s all about defence. Absolutely not.

“He’s a very creative coach, he sees the game in the total view of the thing and anybody that would know him would know he has a passion and he delivers that and demands high standards of the players.

“He is a great innovator in terms of setting up situations in training that translate to the game. It’s not just about training certain drills for skills, if they haven’t got relevance to the game then they are not going to be as beneficial as they would be otherwise.

“So that’s a great skill to have, a great overview of the game. He reminds me of the top-class snooker players, not looking at the immediate but always at three shots down the line.”

Harte first met Devlin at Tyrone minor trials in the 1990s and realised there was something special about the teenager straight away.

“Clubs send you in nominations and you are looking for 24 players and you get 240 nominations,” said Harte of the process for finalising minor panels. “You have to work on that to reduce it. There are trials and he was on one of these teams and he was playing wing half back and this young lad was talking and directing operations and telling people where to go.

“He had never seen these other players before but he knew that they needed to be doing things that he could see.

“Then when he played for us he was such a good reader of the game. He knew his limitations, he hadn’t a big kick of the ball but of course he was very fortunate that he had Brian McGuigan not far from him all the time.

“He would say, ‘Give the ball to McGuigan, give the ball to McGuigan’. All he wanted to know when he got the ball was, ‘Where’s McGuigan?’ So he could give him a foot pass of 30 or 35 yards, or a hand pass, and he was very good at that.

“He knew the people that needed to get the ball to make things happen.”

Harte said Devlin’s ability to strategise and to carefully plan out training has allowed the veteran manager to stand back and monitor.

“I am just there now as a kind of overseer of the thing,” he explained. “There is Murtagh O’Brien, Paul McFlynn, Enda Muldoon, they are the ones who help out Gavin to share the load with him. The directive comes from him. He knows what we want to achieve with this team. He creates the training elements that need to be put into it to make that happen. He is just gold to me.”

Harte reiterated that agreeing to manage Derry wasn’t such a big deal. His outlook had always been that if Tyrone didn’t want him, he’d manage elsewhere, while he wasn’t from close to Derry. But it was different for Devlin.

“I am far enough away from the (Derry) border not to be too concerned about it,” said Harte. “Obviously for him, and his proximity to the Derry border, the nearer you are to somebody the bigger the rivalry.

“He has a couple of lads who are good footballers too, and they would be making strides with Tyrone and the U-20s at the minute.

“So that was something he had to consider as well. He has just been very loyal to me over time. Over the years, he has been very loyal and I have always said he is as good as another son to me. He is very loyal, absolutely loyal to me.”