MICKEY Harte admits the start of the forthcoming season “is challenging” as he prepares to be thrown in at the deep end in charge of a Derry side that could be without several key players.
The Oak Leafers begin the 2024 season next Wednesday (January 3) with a trip to Kingspan Breffni to meet Cavan, also under a new manager in Raymond Galligan, and they will be without goalkeeper Odhran Lynch.
The Magherafelt clubman was the hero of the Oak Leafers’ Ulster Championship penalty shootout win against Armagh and he’ll be “doing well” to be ready for the start of the National League, says Harte.
Derry will also be minus their contingent from Ulster club champions Glen who are chasing their first All-Ireland title. The Maghera outfit, who include Ciaran McFaul and Conor Glass, meet Dublin and Leinster champions Kilmacud Croke’s in Newry on January 7. The All-Ireland club final is scheduled for January 21, a week before Derry begin their Division One campaign with a trip to play Kerry at Tralee’s Austin Stack Park.
The following weekend there’ll be no shortage of hoo-ha about Harte-versus-Tyrone when Derry host the Red Hands arrive at Celtic Park but what’s on the scoreboard will be all that really matters and the lack of personnel available is a concern for the Derry manager.
“As long as unavailability and injuries aren’t hampering your chances of giving the best of yourself that (being thrown in at the deep end) is good,” he says.
“But it’s still challenging. There will be room for other players to be seen and that’s what’s great about the McKenna Cup as well. It’s great to have the opportunity to get those players into a competitive game where you hope you have the spine of the team available to you and they can be the add-on to the core of the team.
“That’s the way I’ve always used the McKenna Cup. As long as you’ve five or six or your key men available it makes good sense that you can add new, or younger, or inexperienced players to that and they get some value out of it.”
Derry retained the Ulster title last season and went to the verge of an All-Ireland final with a rookie manager in Ciaran Meenagh at the helm. Theoretically at least, bringing in a man with three Sam Maguires under his belt has to improve their chances of landing the big one next year.
That will be Harte’s aim and he’ll have players capable of achieving it but would landing an All-Ireland with Derry feel as good and mean as much to him, as doing it with his native Tyrone?
“Any All-Ireland that I’ve been involved in, I felt it was for the greater good, it was for the players as a unit and the people who support those players,” he said.
“That’s what gives me more pleasure than anything. If Derry are to win something big it would be the value and the feelgood factor it would give to people who felt ownership of that.
“It’s not for me, I’m not doing anything for me anymore, I’m doing it for the people on the pitch, their families and the people who support them.”
