TYRONE supporters need no reminding of the epic battles with Kerry that have defined the course of sporting history in the county over the last decade and a half.
The Kingdom and the Red Hand have clashed at club level too, and will do so again this weekend when Moy take on An Ghaeltacht in the All-Ireland Club IFC semi-final at Portlaoise.
For most of those involved, this will be a totally new experience, but the Cavanagh brothers have been there before, fronting up to great Kerry teams and Croke Park and beyond.
Moy skipper Eunan Deeney has also sampled the unique rivalry. He was a dynamic wing back on the Tyrone minor team that overwhelmed Kerry in the 2010 All-Ireland quarter-final, going on to lift the
Tom Markham Cup with victories over Mayo and Cork.
“It’s going to be a Tyrone-Kerry battle, and there’s not a lot of love lost between the two,” said Deeney.
“We’ll have the Tyrone heads on us, and they’ll have the Kerry heads on them.”
An Ghaeltacht is one of a handful of iconic Kerry clubs, and competed in an All-Ireland senior final in the not too distant past.
Former Kingdom star Marc O Se is the only survivor from that formidable team, and as player-manager, he is leading the charge as they seek to return to supremacy.
“We’re always hearing about the wonderful Kerry footballers and all the glory of Kerry football,” said Deeney.
“As for the Ghaeltcacht, they have underpinned much of the Kerry success, and going up against them is going to be serious.
“It just raises the whole magnitude of the game. Everybody in Ireland will have heard of them, but not everybody will have heard of us.
“People know about the pedigree they have fed into the Kerry senior set-up, but we have fed a lot of players into the Tyrone team too, and over the last decade, Tyrone have got the better of Kerry.”
The vast experience of Sean and Colm Cavanagh, All-Ireland winners and All-Stars will be vital to Moy’s prospects of reaching the Croke Park decider.
“They’ll know about the reputation of Sean and Colm, and they’ll probably base a lot of their knowledge on that. Likewise, we could be naïve and base it all on the O Ses.
“But we’re smarter than that, and we’ll base it on what they really have. I’m sure they have a lot of depth of talent. We’ll analyse that and seek to capitalise on it.
“We look to them (Cavanaghs) whenever we come out of Tyrone and go into Ulster, and now it’s going to be a totally different ball game going in the All-Ireland stages.
“We know how precious every ball and every minute will be, and we’ll look at them, and we’ll see how they go about it.
“Sean and Colm have been there before and they’ll know more than anybody.”
Two teams with limited knowledge of each other and their respective styles of play will rely very much on instinct and seek to play to their own strengths, and that could make for an open and exciting contest at O’Moore Park.
“It might be an open, free-flowing, a shoot-out, and we’d welcome that, but it might come to a time when we just have to grind out a victory, and we’ve done that in the past.
“We’ll do what it takes to win. We want to go to Croke Park, the Moy jersey has never been worn at Croke Park before, and we’re determined as a team, as a community, as a club, to get there.”
In a historic season for Moy, which saw them win a first county championship in 35 years, before going on to become first-time provincial champions, the impact of every single players has been invaluable.
“This year has been unbelievable, you could identify a different man of the match in every game, whereas it would have been the likes of Philly Jordan, Sean Cavanagh, Colm Cavanagh who would carry the team through.
“This year, Ryan Coleman stepped up when he needed to, Harry Loughran stepped up massively in a number of games, Niall Conlon stepped up, Tommy Conlon has had the best season he has ever played, out goalkeeper Nathan Brady has had an amazing year, then there’s Tommy McNicholl and Paddy Mackle.
“It’s spread, and a lot of the responsibility has spread, and for me as captain, it’s an absolute joy, because you don’t have that worry or panic that you have to be the best player on the field, because it’s a shared responsibility.
“If you look across the team, there’s leaders in every line, and they can keep the thing right.”
ends
