FORMER Tyrone manager Mickey Harte has cautioned the Red Hands they will need to be ready for the intensity that Mayo will bring to next Saturday’s All-Ireland final showdown and be mindful of the “serious hurt” and “long hunger” the Connacht men carry in search of the Sam Maguire.
Mayo lost five All-Ireland finals in the last decade – including three heart-wrenching one-point defeats to the six-in-a-row Dubs – and haven’t got their hands on the coveted silverware since 1951.
Even though Harte is freed from the shackles of manager, the three-times All-Ireland winning manager is reluctant to declare a fourth Sam Maguire for his native Tyrone is within their grasp.
“We all hope Tyrone will win,” he said. “[But] It’s dangerous to say: ‘Tyrone are going to win this’ and word gets back to Mayo. You want to be careful about what you say but Tyrone are more than capable of winning this.
“It’s like everything else, the ball needs to roll for them and Mayo are a dangerous team at this stage because there is nobody – nobody apart from Dublin – who have more experience of this final day than Mayo.
“There is a serious hurt from what they’ve lost. Yes, Tyrone can beat Mayo but, by heavens, it won’t be easy. They are up against more than a Mayo team – they are up against a long, long hunger that’s within them.”
While understanding the love affair the nation has with the Mayo footballers, given the series of near-misses in finals and semi-finals over the last decade or more, Harte noted: “I think everybody outside of Tyrone would have a soft spot for Mayo at this stage but I would say our soft spot doesn’t reach that far.”
In notable Championship encounters between this year’s finalists, Mayo knocked Tyrone out of the 2004 All-Ireland quarter-finals – the year the Red Hands lost the great Cormac McAnallen.
In 2008, Tyrone avenged that defeat by claiming Mayo’s scalp with a point to spare in a pulsating All-Ireland Qualifier at Croke Park as Harte’s men went on to win their third Sam Maguire that season.
Tyrone suffered an All-Ireland semi-final loss to the current Connacht champions in 2013 and a quarter-final in 2016, the latter by the narrowest of margins.
“We maybe didn’t beat Mayo in a couple of games but we beat them every time we went to Castlebar,” Harte said.
“I don’t think we ever lost in Castlebar in all of my time.
“After 2008, they got the upper hand, but they’re fine lines. And I remember Petey [Harte] got injured in one of those games too [2013 All-Ireland semi-final, taking a heavy shoulder from Mayo’s Tom Cunniffe].
“He was taken out. I remember he didn’t even get a free for it and had to leave the pitch [after six minutes].
“I remember Stevie O’Neill had to come off in one of those games too having gone over on his ankle. So there are always contributing factors in these tales of woe, if you like. And the days you win, things go for you. If the little things go for you and you seize it, that’s good. But if they go against you, you can be in trouble.”
