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Two brilliant McConnell saves block Monaghan’s chances

Wednesday, 21 July 2010

Colm Cavanagh clutches the high ball during the Ulster Senior Championship final on Sunday.

TYRONE manager Mickey Harte has admitted that but for two brilliant first have saves by Pascal McConnell, the story of the Ulster SFC final could have been a different narrative.
The Red Hands won comfortably by 1-14 to 0-7, but Harte said: "You take the two goal chances that Monaghan had, and for Packie McConnell to keep them out gave us the great confidence, because we had been playing good football, and maybe not that far ahead.
“And if either, or both, of those goals had gone in, we would have been in a serious bad position, because when you play a lot of football, and aren't putting it up on the board, it would have been a very different game.
“So little things like that change the complexion of a game, and when we survived those goal scares, we knew we were capable of delivering some more."
Harte dismissed suggestions that Tyrone had an easy run to the title, despite the fact that they won by 10 points.
“It was never going to be easy, and it wasn't easy. Maybe the last 15 minutes, Monaghan found that the game was going away from them, and it was hard to try and salvage the day.
“But I'd say up until that time, it wasn't totally secured until we scored our goal.
“So that's the thing. You might be a few points ahead, but four or five or six points ahead in the modern game isn't an awful lot, because one break up the field, the opposition score a goal, get the next kick-out and suddenly you're in trouble.
“So it's a fine line between a comfortable win and a dangerous win, and we had a comfortable one today."
The Tyrone boss was pleased to see his side maintain the momentum right to the finish, even though the outcome was a foregone conclusion long before that.
“You have to do that. If you don't do that, then you're in a bad place, because if you take your eye off the ball, if you don't drive on your superiority, you'll be caught out.
“We've often seen that before, when you have what looked like a decent lead, you take your foot off the pedal, and you get caught, or almost caught.
“So we weren't in the business of doing that today, we couldn't afford to give Monaghan that kind of chance, so we had to keep our foot on the pedal and try and close the game out."
And having won back-to-back Ulster titles for the first time, another target has been reached for the Errigal Ciaran man.
“It's something you don't often get the chance to do. It took Tyrone a long time to get to there. 1995/96 is a long time ago, we were in that position, and when you're in a position, you ought to make the most of it. We did today, so hopefully we can build on that now, because we like winning Ulster titles, and we'd line another title somewhere down the road.
“There's a lot of hard miles to climb before that, but to be in that place, we're in the All-Ireland quarter-final, it's seriously knock-out business now, so we'd like to make a few more strides than we did last year."
Harte never doubted the capacity of his players to achieve this season, even during a disappointing league campaign which ended in relegation.
“I always had optimism. I believe in this side, I believe in these players.
“Relegation didn't bother me. I didn't want to be relegated, but it didn't men we were a bad side.
“I believe that this is the kind of quality that you're seeing in Tyrone players. We're not going to swing from the rooftops and say that we're the finished product, but we're a decent product, and a decent product that can get better. And if we're in that place at this time of year, then I'll take that any year."
Meanwhile, Monaghan boss Seamus McEnaney admitted he faces a big task in lifting his players ahead of next weekend's Qualifier tie.
“It probably was Monaghan's worst performance in six years. It's wild disappointing.
“We're together a long time, and we have had a lot of setbacks. Today is one of our worst setbacks.
“We were very, very poor, especially the second half, but listen, we'll get on with the job. We'll go for something to eat now tonight and we'll start preparing for next Saturday night," he said.
But he acknowledged that his players had been beaten by one of the best teams he has ever seen.
“Tyrone are not three-time All-Ireland champions for nothing. They're the best team in Ulster from I ever started watching football.
“But regardless of how Tyrone played today, Monaghan was very disappointing. We have to live with that, we have to live with how we played today, and we have to pick ourselves up on Tuesday night in training."

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