Tyrone blazed the trail — now everyone must suffer for All-Ireland glory
It was the spring of 2005, five months before Tyrone won an All-Ireland while bringing the entire championship itself into uncharted territory, when the conditions that nourished all the history that followed were laid down. Wexford had just beaten them in a league semi-final, but for everything unexpected about the result there was enough circumstantial evidence to let Tyrone off the hook.
They were getting battered by injuries. Backs were moonlighting as forwards to fill the gaps. Brian McGuigan was in Australia. Peter Canavan's ankle was aching away with no one sure how much was left in him for the summer ahead. The grief over Cormac McAnallen's death the year before still lingered over a young group like a fog, making people wonder if anything might ever matter as much to any of them anymore.
It was the sort of uncertainty that never had any place in the court of Mickey Harte's thinking. The dressing room door was closed that evening while the group autopsied themselves for 10 merciless minutes. Harte offered them two roads: do what everyone expected and dine out on a single All-Ireland for the rest of their lives or push back hard. They could train harder and smarter. They could look after themselves better. Whatever baggage they were carrying from 2004 had to be stowed away.
'The excuses needed to stop,' Harte said in his autobiography in 2009.
What followed was the greatest All-Ireland winning campaign of them all: two Ulster finals against Armagh and the match of the century with Armagh in the All-Ireland semi-final; three replays, Owen Mulligan's goal against Dublin that turned Tyrone's year upside-down and an epically charged victory over Kerry in the All-Ireland final. Taking 10 games to win an All-Ireland set a new record. The enormous emotional and physical impact, and Tyrone's status among the most resilient teams of any era, made it seem unlikely that anyone could ever clear that bar.
But structures and times change. For nine of the 12 teams that started out the preliminary quarter-finals this weekend, the path to winning an All-Ireland title would require nine games or more. Three of them — Galway, Louth and Meath — would have to match Tyrone's 10 matches. For Donegal to win an All-Ireland they will play at least 11 games. Nothing less than making history will win it for them.
A few teams have been obliged to get close to Tyrone's achievement over the years. Dublin survived nine games to win their All-Irelands in 2019 and 2023; same for Armagh last year plus a couple of chunks of extra time. Kerry took eight games to win titles in 2006 and 2009, all of them experiencing varying versions of what Tyrone went through.
A handful of common themes bonded them. Playing so many games inevitably stretched their squads close to breaking point; all six teams used between 24 (Kerry 2006) and 34 players (Dublin 2019), averaging out around 26 players. Managing tiredness, injuries and potential boredom with training, while trying to ease the effects of the constant expectation leaning on them required different thinking.
'We thought a lot about how to deal with any fatigue-related issues,' said Harte in 2009, recalling the same challenge in 2005, 'and decided the best way to deal with fatigue was to stop thinking about it.'
Tyrone shortened their training sessions and meetings and took care with the language they used when talking about the constant accumulation of games. 'This was a good place to be,' Harte said, 'not a place that made us ache with tiredness. We were fresh, competitively fresh. We weren't training to build up a store of fitness. We were training to play. No team in the country was as battle-hardened as we were. That counted for a lot.'
Some teams required more serious surgery than others during the season. In 2009 Kerry replaced the entire spine of their team on the hoof; the Armagh team that beat Galway in last year's All-Ireland final included a dozen who lined out in their first championship game against Fermanagh. Despite the Armageddon predictions that stalked Kerry through 2006 they still started 11 players from their opening championship game.
Their big season-breaking change was moving Kieran Donaghy to full-forward, unlocking a new attacking option and a fresh energy source fuelled by Donaghy's fearless and feckless exuberance. Tyrone thrived on Peter Canavan rotating off the bench in 2005; Tadhg Kennelly was a key element for Kerry in the second half of 2009. Niall Grimley was huge for Armagh last year in the same way. Spotting and catching a rising wave carried them all a long way.
The scrutiny on Dublin during their five-in-a-row year was different to the absolute poison polluting the mood in Kerry during 2006 — diluted slightly in 2009 — or the questions around Tyrone's ability in 2005 to withstand the damage inflicted on their panel by injuries, suspensions and the physical and psychological Everest of facing Armagh three times. But Dublin players and management all talked afterwards about the closeness developed through the decade that pulled them through a strange year. That feeling of camaraderie through combat is common to them all.
'There's a lot of satisfaction in this,' said O'Connor the evening Kerry won the 2009 All-Ireland. 'We were being written off — fellas like (Pat) Spillane were almost feeling pity for us. But that is where you get the energy from; you get it from enjoying each other's company and trying to build it up.'
The condensed season now amplifies all those demands. Training needs to be sharp and on point. Injuries have a much greater impact when there is less time to recover. Players drifting out of form now don't have all summer to find their way back.
These marathon campaigns have also become a standard part of the championship landscape. Since the first backdoor championship in 2001 — excluding the knockout Covid seasons — only five teams have won an All-Ireland in fewer than seven games. Before that only six teams had ever taken seven or more games to win an All-Ireland in the 112 years of knockout championships.
Before the 2005 final Harte remembered for the Tyrone players how Meath played 10 games in 1991 and still lost the All-Ireland final, and tapped the writings of Rick Pitino, the American college basketball coach. 'Success is not a divine right,' he wrote. 'It's a choice.'
To prevail that year, everything Tyrone did became a simple, binary choice. Stick or twist. Succeed. Fail. Same now.
'By now I've learned that no team and no manager marches through the season to Croke Park,' O'Connor said in his 2006 autobiography. 'You tap dance all the way. Not treading on this. Not splashing on that. In three years I've learned to dance like Astaire.'
That routine has now become an entire Riverdance show.
All-Ireland SFC preliminary quarter-finalBallybofey, Sunday, 4pmTV: GAA+
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Sione Tuipulotu's Lions partner Bundee Aki voices frustration after midfield duo fail to 'connect'
Bundee Aki admits his British and Irish Lions partnership with Scotland captain Sione Tuipulotu simply 'has to get better' if it's to survive the rigours of an Australian tour. The muscular duo failed to sparkle in last Friday's opening defeat to Argentina in Dublin, and it remains to be seen if head coach Andy Farrell will try the midfield combination again. Tuipulotu was operating out of position at outside centre and his performance suffered as a result. While there were encouraging signs for the Lions in attack, key passes did not stick on numerous occasions, and Farrell later lamented an error-strewn performance by his team in their first match of the campaign. Aki confessed that it was 'frustrating' he did not 'connect well' with his fellow centre. 'We all know how Sione is as a player, he's class' said New Zealand-born Ireland star Aki, who scored the Lions' opening try in the first half. 'The frustrating thing for me was I wasn't able to connect well with him. He's an unbelievable player and there's no excuse, we've got to get better as a partnership going forward.' Aki believes that individual combinations can only improve as the tour of Australia gathers pace. 'He (Tuipulotu) speaks out loud, which is what we need, him being himself and I just feed off him and he feeds off me,' said Aki. 'The more we grow as a partnership, the better it is for the group.' It's thought that Farrell might prefer to consider Tuipulotu and Aki as either-or options at 12, rather than as a double act. Tuipulotu and Aki regularly play as inside centres, while Huw Jones, Garry Ringrose and Elliot Daly are all more used to wearing the 13 jersey. Australia-born Tuipulotu has an established partnership with Jones for Glasgow Warriors and Scotland, while Aki and Ringrose know each other well from Irish sides. Aki said: 'Whoever it is, Garry, Huw, Elliot, as a unit we've got to make sure we gel together and get that cohesiveness fairly quick because we need to be better.' The Lions were greeted by supporters on their arrival at Perth Airport today, where England sensation Henry Pollock had the duty of carrying BIL the lion teddy as the squad's youngest player. But the squad touched down with a warning from two of Pollock's England team-mates ringing in their ears. Tom Curry and Fin Smith were both less than impressed after the defeat by Argentina, with Curry admitting the loss served as a major wake-up call. 'We need to take responsibility for our performances,' he said. 'We can't score points if we're giving the ball away easily. We must have tough conversations. Smith, one of 14 Lions debutants against the Pumas, said he was 'gutted' and 'pretty deflated'. 'There is a lot to get better at,' he said. 'The main thing is how quickly we can respond and stop feeling sorry for ourselves.' The Lions' first game Down Under is against the Western Force on Saturday.
BBC News
3 hours ago
- BBC News
McGuinness 'delighted' with Donegal progression
Donegal manager Jim McGuinness says he is "delighted" after securing an All-Ireland quarter-final berth. Conor O'Donnell and Ciaran Thompson netted as the Ulster champions ran out 2-22 to 0-12 winners over will be pitted against either Meath or Ulster rivals Monaghan in the draw for the last eight on Monday."We're delighted to be in the quarter-final draw, that was the overwhelming ambition coming into the game," McGuinness told BBC Sport NI."We're very happy to be there."The quarter-final will be a ninth Championship match in the space of 13 weeks for Donegal, a schedule McGuinness admits is "gruelling".However, the Tir Chonaill boss is looking at the positives and says "we don't want to go down that road"."We had three big games ahead of us. Thankfully we've navigated two and we've one more ahead of us. "We're delighted to have that opportunity to play in that game, regardless of who we get in what will be a very tough draw."We'll take the positives and take the learnings from today, and hopefully we can build on that for next week."It's going to be very difficult to navigate the next round but that's were we want to be."
BBC News
3 hours ago
- BBC News
Devine wins third Donegal International Rally in a row
Callum Devine came through a demanding Donegal International Rally to win the event for a third year in a row. The 2023 Irish Tarmac Rally champion won the three-day event - one of the most famous rallies in Europe - alongside co-driver Noel O'Sullivan by 20.5 seconds ahead of Wales' Meirion Evans, while local driver David Kelly was third. Skoda driver Devine, 31, led after Friday's six stages but a gruelling Saturday saw a number of big names drop out of contention. European Rally Championship driver Jon Armstrong posted a number of fastest stage times and was challenging Devine on Saturday's first loop but a differential problem on his Ford Fiesta dropped him out of contention, and a second mechanical issue halted his recovery later in the day. Two time ERC champion Hayden Paddon, a late entry for the rally from New Zealand, was in the mix for victory but rolled out on Saturday's penultimate stage. The final stage on Saturday claimed British Rally Championship title challenger William Creighton, who slid off the road with a slow puncture and decided to retire his Toyota Yaris. The various issues for front runners took away from what could have been a titanic battle for the win in the Donegal hills as just 20 seconds separated Devine, Creighton, Evans and Paddon after 12 as his rivals faltered, Devine, who himself battled handbrake issues, kept his cool to win the rally for the third consecutive and co-driver Ger Conway were a comfortable second and, despite his issues, Armstrong and co-driver Shane Byrne had moved back into podium contention but the Fermanagh driver retired after an off on the final promoted Kelly and navigator Arthur Kierans onto the final step of the podium for the second year in a row.
