Football

Ronan McNamee glad to be back in Tyrone's defensive hub

Attending the launch of the Ulster GAA Senior Football Championship in Derry recently were Neil Forrester from Derry with Ronan McNamee of Tyrone Picture Margaret McLaughlin
Attending the launch of the Ulster GAA Senior Football Championship in Derry recently were Neil Forrester from Derry with Ronan McNamee of Tyrone Picture Margaret McLaughlin Attending the launch of the Ulster GAA Senior Football Championship in Derry recently were Neil Forrester from Derry with Ronan McNamee of Tyrone Picture Margaret McLaughlin

THREE months of globe-trotting didn’t scratch the travel itch for Ronan McNamee. At some point, he will put his Tyrone career on hold and spend a year away.

He spent the winter months in New York and flew to Australia for a three-week visit. He stayed in Yonkers in New York and a little surfers’ town called Yamba in New South Wales, Australia.

He didn’t kick an O’Neill’s ball the entire time he was away.

“I didn’t play football of any kind when I went out to New York,” he says.

“At that stage New York were gathering a panel for in-house matches. I was considering going over just for numbers-wise but I didn’t. And when I got to Australia there was no football, especially the town we were in. It was a wee surfers’ town. But I was looking forward to coming home to get playing football.”

Probably the thing he misses most about New York is sharing drinks in The Playwright, just off 49th Street near Times Square, where his friend was a barman and Byron Bay, the Gold Coast, Sydney and the early-morning cycles in Australia where his brother lived.

“We cycled at six in the morning. By nine o’clock it was absolutely scorching... I didn’t go mad training-wise but I came back in reasonable shape and kind of surprise myself.

“But I’d love to take a year out,” McNamee admits.

“It’s a double-edged sword because you want to do both and you can’t. I’m sure you’ll have regrets either way.

“It would kill me if I wasn’t there for Tyrone but at the same time you’re young once and you want to see the world when you can.”

McNamee was happy to get back home in January and was glad to find that he had company on his journeys from Castlederg to Garvaghey.

“There’s another lad on the panel from our club (Ronan McHugh) so it was nice to know that you weren’t going up the road on your own.”

The 25-year-old full-back featured in each of Tyrone’s Allianz NFL Division One games, bar the defeat to Kerry.

He started five League games and played alongside Padraig Hampsey and Cathal McCarron in four of them.

While Mickey Harte talked about the need for defenders to get on the scoreboard “a la Philly McMahon”, the Red Hand full-back line didn’t register a score in seven NFL games.

Described as too defensive and over-reliant on their running game by some observers, Tyrone came unstuck in last year’s All-Ireland quarter-final against eventual finalists Mayo.

A raft of late misses from the Ulster champions enabled Mayo to sneak into the semi-finals.

But McNamee gives a stout defence of Tyrone’s template.

“Mayo tailored the way they played from the previous game – against Westmeath,” recalls the Aghyaran clubman.

“Against Westmeath, it was attack, attack, attack. They brought an aggression to the game against us that you normally wouldn’t see from a Mayo team and they were ruthless and crafty.

“There was only a point in it and we definitely had chances to kick an equaliser. Cathal [McCarron] missed one and I would’ve put my house on him putting it over.

“[Darren] McCurry missed one too. If you took those boys out to a field they would kick 10 out of 10. Those boys were well capable but you can’t argue about it now.

“It could have been a different story if it had gone to a replay.”

McNamee rejects the notion that Tyrone needed to tweak their gameplan for the wide open spaces of Croke Park and the slick surface.

“If you’re good at something, you don’t change it. Nine times out of 10 it works.

“If we’d beaten Mayo then our system wouldn’t have been questioned.

“The system wasn’t at fault the day we got beaten by Mayo. It was down to decision-making in front of goal.

“If we’d won by a point, people would be saying the system was flawless and faultless.

“It is either: ‘Get rid of the system’ or ‘It’s the best system in the world’, when you win.

“It’s such a fine line.”

And the Tyrone defender, who was drafted into the senior set-up in 2012, isn’t reading too much into the team’s poor finish to their League campaign where they lost three on the bounce to Donegal, Mayo and Kerry, mustering a paltry 1-16 from play.

“You don’t intentionally go out and be as bad. You try to be as good as you can be every time you go out but it doesn’t always work that way. We finished off with a few defeats but we weren’t a million miles away from being in a League final.”

McNamee also heaped praise on his manager Mickey Harte for his insatiable desire for success.

“You go through a lot of managers at underage and at club levl but Mickey is a serious operator and an absolute gentleman on and off the field.

“I wouldn’t have a bad word to say about him.”

“With Mickey, you never get ahead of yourself – that’s the one thing. It’s always about focusing on the job at hand, whether it’s running blocks or small-sided games, or a Championship game at Celtic Park; he’s just that winning streak. He wants that winning streak to come out in everybody and naturally so. You shouldn’t be there if you don’t want to achieve the best.”