TYRONE have used 28 players in their four McKenna Cup games so far and manager Mickey Harte insists that Ulster’s pre-season competition has served his team well.
With the start of Division One now within touching distance at the end of a busy January, the Tyrone side that took the field against Fermanagh last Sunday included 13 changes from the team that had hammered Cavan in the final group game four days previous.
With players from Ulster University including Ronan McNamee, Mark Bradley and David Mulgrew now set to return to the fold; Harte’s Red Hands will face the winners of tonight’s Donegal-Armagh semi-final on Sunday.
Three-time All-Ireland winner Harte says that test will leave his panel in good shape for their trip to Galway on January 28.
“You can’t go sleepwalking into the League,” he explained.
“You can have lots of handy, open football, knocking up great scores and winning with something to spare. That’s great when you are doing it by all means, but it doesn’t teach you a lot.
“I think that game (against Fermanagh) would have taught us more about what we are going to face in a few weeks’ time, we are very glad to have had that challenge.”
Last Sunday’s workmanlike 0-8 to 0-4 victory over a determined Fermanagh side was exactly the type of who-wants-it-most test Harte wanted for his team. In driving rain and an icy wind, fringe players like Michael Cassidy, Ciaran McLaughlin, Ben McDonnell and Ronan McHugh put their shoulders to the wheel and drove the side to victory in a second half that included just three points (two for Tyrone, one for Fermanagh).
“I suppose it was one of those days when it’s all about the result and semi-finals are all about the result,” Harte reflected.
“Conditions were very bad there. People sitting in the stand mightn’t realise the conditions they were playing in, the underfoot conditions were horrible.
“I think Fermanagh came with a defensive strategy and they acquitted themselves very well. They made life very difficult for us and we weren’t very good at breaking them down.
“We took the ball into the tackle too much, we got turned over too much, so therefore we didn’t add much to our scores.
“Overall, a poor game from a spectator point of view, but sometimes it’s not about how flamboyant the game is, it’s about doing what you need to do on any given day and this was such a contrast from some of our earlier games when there was some open football, high scoring games and this is the other side of the coin.
“And there will be days you have to deal with that. This was a good lesson for us in dealing with that situation.”
Up against a Tyrone side that had run riot against Cavan, Fermanagh’s players were aggressive and physical from the start. The Ernemen threatened only occasionally but they were hard to break down and packed their own half when Tyrone tried to build attacks.
“It’s not always about open running and playing on a good sod,” said Harte.
“There was a lot of physicality in that game. The referee (Ciaran Branagan) to his credit let a lot go and people began to see you didn’t get frees easily and he was playing to the conditions as well.
“I think the players took a while to adjust to that. They might have expected frees here and there and they weren’t coming. But he was very consistent in that and people knew what to expect.”
