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Danny Hughes: Tyrone and Mickey Harte are at a crossroads

Mickey Harte’s reign as Tyrone manager has come under scrutiny after defeat to Donegal
Mickey Harte’s reign as Tyrone manager has come under scrutiny after defeat to Donegal Mickey Harte’s reign as Tyrone manager has come under scrutiny after defeat to Donegal

ASKING my opinion on whether Mickey Harte should stay on as Tyrone manager is like asking me if Ole Gunnar Solskjaer should still be the Manchester United manager.

As a Liverpool fan, seeing United fans bicker amongst themselves on a result by result basis fills me with joy. After all, we have waited a long time for this, and let’s be honest, Liverpool fans have had to endure similar experiences over the space of 30-plus years.

Mickey Harte’s hold on Tyrone football is not dissimilar to Alex Ferguson’s when he was manager of the Red Devils.

Ferguson had the success behind him (despite an underwhelming start and a few seasons at the beginning) and had managed to secure and dispense with world-class players when he felt they had threatened his position.

Despite the fact that he did ruin my youth when he knocked Liverpool off their perch, I recognised and respected the fact that he could be a very charming, affable and generous person too.

He was also steeped in socialist values, akin to legends like Bill Shankly, the father of Liverpool Football Club, and the legendary Jock Stein at Celtic.

Ferguson’s reign was not without its dissent though. They say he was lucky not to lose his job, only for a Mark Robins goal in an FA Cup tie in 1990 against Nottingham Forest and even after a high-profile fall-out with JP McManus and fellow shareholders over racehorse Rock of Gibraltar.

Again, when the Glazers bought the club and lumped a significant amount of debt onto it and then Jose Mourinho became the new dominant force in the game, it looked as if Ferguson had lost it. But, back he came.

Harte is tough – he has had to be. He has faced everything you could possibly throw at a person.

I wouldn’t want his experiences – I pray to God I never will.

The man appears to be totally and absolutely invested in Tyrone football, in the management of the senior team.

Getting down to the fundamentals, I suppose the question I would be asking is this: Is Tyrone football better for having Mickey Harte as manager or is the benefit for Mickey Harte himself?

From a personal point of view, Tyrone’s success has threatened Down’s roll of honour of five

All-Irelands and being honest, our roll will not be added to anytime soon.

Tyrone are in a different space though. They are looking beyond Ulster titles now and at beating Kerry, Dublin, Mayo or Donegal in the latter stages of the All-Ireland Championship.

Harte himself was afforded the opportunity to take the job in 2002, succeeding Art McRory and Eugene McKenna.

Had Sligo not beaten Tyrone in 2002 and had Armagh not won the All-Ireland that year, would Tyrone have been strong-armed into making a change at management level?

I suspect that their greatest rivals securing an All-Ireland caused a deep resentment. At this point, taking the emotion out of it, as an impartial observer, I can’t help but feel that Harte is now standing in the way of a similar bounce that Tyrone could realise, akin to his first season in 2003.

I could be wrong of course, but his domination of Tyrone football and its psyche is dissuading anyone challenging him as manager. It appears that this feeling is being felt at county board level.

On purely footballing decisions made against Donegal last weekend, in my opinion Harte and his management team didn’t perform. Taking off Darren McCurry and Darragh Canavan was madness.

You do not take off scoring forwards, especially when they are on their game, especially at inter-county level when their confidence is high.

That’s not to say Mark Bradley played poorly. He scored and if he had carried the ball in further on that occasion, a glorious goal chance was on. Peter Harte had a similar chance and blazed it over.

Tyrone lost by two points and given the conditions, in truth, this is a game that could have gone either way. All those errors on and off the field cost them.

In truth, players need change. If I was in the shoes of the Tyrone players, I would embrace a new challenge in the form of a new manager, even if they won’t say it.

So, like it or not, that is the way I see it, but I will caveat this by saying that I felt Harte was entitled to make up his own mind on when to step aside. When it turned out that he did want to stay he was deservedly given that three-year contract which has just expired.

Cavan never read the script, or maybe they did and just ripped it up anyway. Their victory over Monaghan, though, was as much about the Farneymen imploding.

I counted about three of four fisted points Monaghan opted to take when the goals were begging to be hit. It is dreadfully difficult to get inside any defence nowadays, so if you do have the opportunity, side-step the goalkeeper and go for goal, just like Darragh Canavan did.

Or do as Cavan did when drawing the keeper before flicking the ball across to Marty Reilly, who palmed the ball to the net. Big moments, big scores.

Monaghan paid the price for being too complacent in the game, thinking they had it won. Conor McManus turned over the ball and Monaghan decided to carry the ball backways at times instead of attacking the play, attacking the moment, and making Cavan pay dearly. This happened time and again.

It appeared to me that Monaghan had a game plan, had trained it, but didn’t factor in the fact that within Championship games, there are periods of non-script, when you rely on instinct and there is no over-arching tactic or playbook to follow.

In those situations you have to follow your natural basic instincts as a footballer – to kill off the opposition by scoring more than them, something you learn when you first lift a football, something that got you playing at inter-county level in the first place, that differentiated you from the average club player.

In recent years, some of these natural instincts of players have become supressed by over-complicated coaching and this may take root in holding possession, or taking no risk.

Seamus McEnaney will be hurting and the players will be devastated. ‘Banty’ will also be thankful for small mercies – he has just been reappointed, so it’s early days in his second term.

However, because of this result, the honeymoon period is over and he is immediately under pressure next season, as Monaghan fans have been spoiled for the best part of a decade now.

There is a serious lack of patience in the game and it is easier now to chase the manager than any player.

One county in which patience in a manager has paid off is in Armagh with Kieran McGeeney. The Orchard county went to Celtic Park to win a game in whatever way it took and with Rory Grugan, Jamie Clarke, the O’Neills and ‘Soupy’ Campbell playing starring roles, I see them as a real threat to Donegal in the semi-final.

Of course, Donegal will be favourites. They have earned that right. But, with nothing to lose, in the back of my head, I just think that this could be Armagh’s best chance in a long time.

Cavan upset the odds, so why can’t Armagh?