The price you pay for being the third best team in Ireland.
Listen, there are moaners everywhere – I think they’re called haters nowadays – and you’ll find somebody giving off about something if you look hard enough but it’s a little sad that Mickey Harte’s contract extension with Tyrone is met with any derision at all. Do you know what? It’s not even sad, it’s just stupid.
We’re talking about Mickey Harte here. We’re talking about Tyrone. And if anyone thinks that his time should be up in the Red Hand county, then we really are in danger of falling into the mires of soccer’s unhealthy short-term business model. Not that he’s not doing the business in the short-term…
The Errigal Ciarán man was reappointed as the inter-county senior football manager on Tuesday and given a term that will take him to at least 2020, another three more seasons in charge of the side he’s handled since 2003. But I actually had an argument with someone that same night of the Tyrone announcement who compared the situation to Arsene Wenger.
Tyrone didn’t beat Dublin and win the All-Ireland so some people have had the affront to say that the manager needs to go because of it when the reality is that the Ulster men are on a very, very steep incline.
In the last two seasons, Mickey Harte has won five trophies with Tyrone. There were only eight available.
These victories consisted of:
- 2 x McKenna Cup
- 2 x Ulster championship
- 1 x NFL Division Two
The only thing Tyrone are missing from the last two seasons are a Division One league title and the All-Ireland. The only thing they’re short of? From being the best team in the country.
So Tyrone are not the best team in the country yet and some people would have that as grounds for changing the manager who’s been there since 2003, change the manager who has won them the last two Ulster titles and showed serious progression from one season to the next.
Imagine, really just imagine, ousting Mickey Harte because Dublin are better than Tyrone.
Harte’s inter-county record with Tyrone
- Ulster minor titles: 3
- All-Ireland minor titles: 1
- Ulster under-21 titles: 3
- All-Ireland under-21 titles: 2
- McKenna Cup titles: 10
- NFL titles: 2 (Division 1, Division 2)
- Ulster senior titles: 6
- All-Ireland senior titles: 3
If you put that into context, Tyrone hadn’t won the All-Ireland before this man.
They’ve won six Ulster in the last 14 years. They’ve only won 15 in their entire history.
And all these past records are almost besides the point anyway because, right now, Mickey Harte hasn’t just taken Tyrone back to the top of the province, he’s taken them streets ahead of the rest of Ulster and that’s not an easy thing to do. He’s put them in the bracket with what were known as the big three – there are now four teams in the country capable of competing at that level and Mickey Harte has dragged them back into that position.
In the long term and for what he has done for the county, it would be very tough and unfair to write him off now. In the short term – and thinking entirely logically and objectively – it would be absolutely crazy to take him out of that position when they now seem closer than they have been in a long time.
