Harte vindicated again as Kerry left bereft

LOCKER ROOM:The Tyrone manager's tactical nous and cool genius on the sideline helped ensure another famous triumph for his outstanding and fearless squad

SO FOR Kerry it ended in grief, and all the clarions of hype and the accumulated wisdom of ages could not save them The grim reaper, as they might have expected, had a northern accent when he cleared his throat and announced his business.

In the long, golden thread of wonder and glory that Kerry has created for itself there are two barbs that will always catch and wound. The Down team of the 1960s and this Tyrone team, who with their guerrilla-style assaults on the All-Ireland have claimed for themselves at least half the bragging rights in the team-of-the-decade stakes.

Kerry will hate this defeat as much as they have hated any in their history. It will taste bad and be indigestible and incomprehensible and will require vengeance.

This loss was inflicted on a Kerry side that had apparently been equipped with the antidote to Tyrone's style. Kerry had a full forward line to which the ball would stick like darts to a board. They had Donaghy and young Tommy Walsh and even the Gooch, whose power in the clouds is a little-talked-about part of his armoury.

And it didn't work. Tyrone did what it said on the packet. They swarmed and niggled and were relentless and when they attacked they were at times breathtaking.

Most of all they were fearless. I recall being on the bus back north with the Down team of the early 90s after their first All-Ireland victory and a man got onto the bus in Dundalk after the cup had been shown to the cheering locals and he leaned into the seat occupied by Conor Deegan, the Down full-back.

"You're as good as John O'Keeffe" he said, offering the ultimate compliment to a number three. "Thanks" said Conor Deegan. "Who's John O'Keeffe?"

So it is with Tyrone. They have no awe of or great respect for Kerry. They don't get a shudder when they see the green-and-gold jersey. They are happily oblivious. They blow into town, half of them looking like Popeye's old enemy Bluto and they wind up the crowd with every point they score.

You can see how it could all be irritating. Tyrone's style of football certainly contains elements of breathtakingly exciting combustibility but they play the percentages and live on the edge and if you come from the land of Mick O'Connell and Maurice Fitz the game Tyrone play must grate like Esperanto on the ears of a Gaeilgeoir.

Having been beaten by Tyrone in 2003, Kerry shed their manager Páidí Ó Sé only to be beaten again in 2005 under Jack O'Connor. Jack went away and brooded for the winter, studying Tyrone's style while he did so.

He got advice on the northern style of tackling. He imported new drills. And he found in Kieran Donaghy the last part of the weaponry needed to beat Tyrone.

Tyrone vanished of course. Like Down in the 60s they never popped out from Ulster at a time that would suit Kerry. Jack had to make do with the 2006 demolition of Armagh, which was satisfying and glorious but not quite the same thing as putting Tyrone to the sword.

Jack returned to his meditations on Toorsaleen and was replaced by Pat O'Shea.

Tyrone were a pallid version of their old selves through most of the summer but the demolition of the Dubs at the quarter-final stage did them a power of good. They began to daydream and lay plans.

Kerry meanwhile were able to progress without looking anything like their best except on that gloomy, rain-sodden day against Galway. Most of the year they were giving away chunky leads and doing just enough to remind us that they could be better.

And we assumed they would be better whenever they needed to be. They are Kerry after all. They missed Paul Galvin more than people realised though and they missed Seán O'Sullivan too.

In the matter of having towering forwards inside the opposition 21-yard line it's often forgotten that being lofty is useful only if the ball coming into you is thoughtful and crafted.

In Kerry's pomp over the past few years, Galvin and Seán Bán fed ball into Donaghy that dropped at just such a trajectory it gave the big man something to attack.

Yesterday the ball coming into the full- forward line had snow on it and was dropping in such a way as to announce itself as 50-50 ball. That's all a back line need. Tyrone's back line need less. They are football's version of the old hell's kitchen. Time and again while the Gooch or Messrs Donaghy and Walsh waiting for incoming leather it dropped short, hopelessly short, and into the hands of a Tyrone back who had felt no fears about getting out front of his vaunted marker.

The best ball and the best fielding came from Darragh Ó Sé but the greatest midfielder of the age is past the stage where he is able to drive Kerry for a full 70 minutes. Darragh has to time his input for the occasion of Kerry's greatest need. Yesterday the need was too great and too constant for even his interventions to be critical.

Kerry hadn't enough hitting around the middle third of the field and, apart from Declan O'Sullivan, who was required to do too much, their forwards never got their mojo working. By half-time yesterday, even though Kerry led by a point, the champions looked spooked.

When the footballing was done and Plan B had been put into effect by the Croke Park authorities, but not Kerry, you had to chalk another one up to Mickey Harte.

When Tyrone lined out, two-thirds of their half-forward line was different from the team that had been announced. Different and way beefier. Kerry, critically, were going with Eoin Brosnan and Bryan Sheehan as their wing unit. Not a lot of hitting and thumping in those boys. Harte saw the chance to give his midfield area more than the 30-per-cent ration they are accustomed to living on.

Tyrone had come to town leaving real grief behind them. They are a side as accustomed to grieving together as they are to winning together and perhaps that gives them a different perspective. The prodigal son Stephen O'Neill was reintegrated to the set-up without fuss. Yesterday Ciarán Gourley and Brian McGuigan were dropped from the starting line-up for tactical reasons. No complaints anywhere.

It all worked and worked perfectly. Tyrone scrambled a goal right at the start of the second half and whatever Pat O'Shea had said to his spooked boys was forgotten. They were hanging on white knuckle-style now.

Harte's impassive, thoughtful demeanour on the sideline is much imitated by wannabe bainisteoirs but inside his head you imagine he sees a football game in slow motion and with the benefit of split screens. Amid the hurly- burly and all the craziness from the stands he sees the game's pressure points and the little malfunctions most of us miss.

He spoke afterwards yesterday about managing being like playing a hand of cards and of needing to know when to play each. All summer long he played what he was dealt to perfection.

There were many who thought back in June when his side were struggling against Down that he had stayed too long and would leave in the ignominious style of many a manager before who had committed the same sin.

Instead he coaxed a third All-Ireland out of a county that had won none before he invented the style that is Tyrone's. Yesterday and against Dublin he played his hand with cool genius. Tyrone have three All-Irelands from the decade and Mickey Harte is hoisted to the uppermost shelf in the pantheon of great managers.

Not what we expected to happen but that's Mickey Harte's speciality.