Football

2014 was darkest day before the dawn for Tyrone

Armagh's win over Tyrone in the 2014 Championship was a watershed moment for the Red Hands. Picture by Seamus Loughran
Armagh's win over Tyrone in the 2014 Championship was a watershed moment for the Red Hands. Picture by Seamus Loughran Armagh's win over Tyrone in the 2014 Championship was a watershed moment for the Red Hands. Picture by Seamus Loughran

“A HARD day of itself isn’t a bad thing – it’s what you do with it.”

Through all the glory days that Ulster teams have enjoyed, particularly over the past 30 years, there is the central theme of having come through the school of hard knocks.

Go right back to Down losing an Ulster semi-final replay to Armagh by a single point in 1990, having knocked on the door in the late 80s.

The Donegal squad of ’92 lost the All-Ireland semi-final to Meath two years earlier. Derry’s glorious crop of ’93 lost a replay to Down in ’91 and then an Ulster decider to Donegal the year after.

The list goes on and on. Armagh and Tyrone both took kidney punches in the couple of years prior to their breakthrough successes of 2002 and 2003.

Those days are gone and these are two brand new teams but for this Red Hand crop, the darkest day was their 2014 round two qualifier loss to Armagh in their own back yard.

That afternoon it seemed like Tyrone football didn’t know where it was at or worse, where it was headed. It felt more like an end than a beginning.

“From where we were in 2013 where Mayo just foiled us again in the semi-final, and like anything you try and build on what you did the previous year… to lose that game,” recalls Sean Cavanagh.

“Armagh came that day with a ferocious aggression and we lost Mattie after 30 minutes and it was always going to be tough on a long summer’s day on a big pitch.

“It was hugely disappointing, especially being captain for the first time that year it felt like… well Tyrone don’t lose second round qualifiers at home on a hot summer’s day to an Armagh team that probably did not get the credit they deserved.

“It was funny people talked here the last few days about Armagh have not been here in a long time but they were within a kick of the ball of being in the semi-final in 2017.

“They were a point up against Donegal and probably should have seen the game out and Donegal went on and walloped the Dubs and that’s only three years ago.”

Rather than dusk, it turned to dawn. From the following January, Mickey Harte set about reforming not only the make-up of the Tyrone forward line but their entire style of football.

They had brought the sport into a new era with their demonic workrate during the 2000s and having watched Donegal take that up another notch in 2012, the Red Hands followed suit.

By the time of that 2014 meeting, the All-Ireland winning squad had dissipated barring a remaining few, yet of the front six that started that afternoon in Healy Park, none will begin the game in Croke Park tomorrow.

That’s partly down to the injury suffered by Connor McAliskey – who hasn’t been ruled out of an appearance later in the summer should Tyrone progress – and the preference for others ahead of Darren McCurry.

Not only has the team developed in the footballing sense since then, but they have moved on physically as well.

And yet it could have been so different had Mickey Harte succumbed to elements of growing pressure around the county to bring an end to his own tenure.

It had been four years since their last Ulster title, six since the third All-Ireland and the natives were growing restless.

But self doubt was never on the agenda.

“When you’re at it as long as I am, there’s plenty of hard days.

“A hard day of itself isn’t a bad thing – it’s what you do with it. It’s the same as players making mistakes, they don’t set out to make them but the biggest mistake they can make is dwelling on it.

“If we collectively, as a management team, have things to learn from a particular experience then as long as we learn from it, it might not necessarily be a bad experience.

“I would like to think we are [a better team now]. I would like to think that we have matured over the years. We have good young players who have come in and have been successful at other levels to a very high degree.

“We need to be better than we were then and our results since have proved that we are on an upwards curve and I hope that continues.”