Sunday Tribune Article

[C_Berg_316]

Just wondering did anyone read the Article by Kieran Shannon in yesterdays Sunday Tribune?  It was realted to Tony Donnelly - Mickey Harte gets a lot of Credit throughout the media and rightly so but i think this Artcile showed that Tony (and indeed Fergal McCann) plays a vital role in the whole Tyrone setup and hopefully the trio can bring Tyrone to back-to-back glory!!

[longrunsthefox]

Aye-Tony is excellent...very astute man and doesn't crave the limelight. Also have had some dealings with him through local football and salt of the earth. I have been told by couple of lads in panel that he knows hsi stuff alright.

[screenexile]

From tribune.ie

I think, therefore I've Sam


Mickey Harte credits Tony Donnelly as the football mind behind Tyrone. They both talk to Kieran Shannon
Right-hand man: a confidante, lieutenant and above all friend to Mickey Harte since they were in school, Tony Donnelly is vital to Tyrone for his 'insightful, calculated' input

A few weeks before Tyrone played Armagh in the 2003 All Ireland final, Mickey Harte called over to Tony Donnelly's house. At the time Donnelly wasn't part of the official set-up but on match days he was Harte's eye in the stand and between games Harte would seek his counsel as well. "Right, it's Friday," said Harte. "For the next few days you're Joe Kernan. I'll be back to you on Tuesday and then tell me what way you're thinking."

The following Tuesday Harte was back to check in on 'Joe'.

"Well," said 'Joe', "the last thing I want to do with Tyrone is give you the ball, so I'm going to play a three-man full forward line."

"Nah, you'll not," said Harte. "You'll not just change for Tyrone."

"I will," said 'Joe'. "I don't want Tyrone having a spare man at the back the way they attack back to front so quickly. A three-man line will occupy them and ask serious questions of their full back line. I'm keeping [Ronan] Clarke and [Diarmuid] Marsden in there with Stevie [McDonnell]."

The real Joe did – and that night in the Burlington Hotel Harte and his players celebrated the county's first ever All Ireland.

As for where the other 'Joe' was that night? The Burlington? "Nah. Didn't go to the banquet. Was with family."

Where so? "The Skylon, maybe. Not sure. Somewhere in Phibsboro. Again, not sure. I was drunk somewhere else [than the Burlington] would be your answer to that!"

And at that, he laughs, and beside him, Mickey Harte, the pioneer, does too.

• • •

These days 'Joe' is officially part of the backroom team but he's not what you call a selector; in Tyrone only one man picks the team.

He's not exactly "assistant manager" either; if Tyrone ever had someone by that title, it was Father Gerard McAleer. Basically to anyone outside the Tyrone setup, Tony Donnelly's "the guy with the moustache" you always see with Mickey Harte on the line. Outside the Tyrone dressing room, that is.

Inside it, he's the owner of one of the greatest brains in football and one of the quickest wits in Tyrone. And to Harte, he's a confidante, lieutenant, but above all, friend.

They first met in sixth year, way back in '72. Donnelly was only a few weeks in the Brothers in Omagh, Harte was playing in that Sunday's All Ireland minor final, and during one free class, Donnelly made a point of introducing himself to wish Harte all the best. Turned out they had a good bit in common. Football. Pool. In other ways they were polar opposites. That same day Donnelly asked where could he grab a cigarette. Harte, needless to say, didn't smoke. "But I knew where the smokers were," smiles Harte, and he had a friend for life.

They went to St Joe's training college together, shared digs together, and nearly every night went to the Hunting Lodge together, even if Mickey was sporting his pioneer pin already and Tony wasn't.

They shared similar ideas about football too. Tony wasn't much of a player – "I could really analyse my own game – lazy, no pace, no feet" – but Harte could tell he had a serious football mind. In 1982 Augher won the county, with Tony as joint manager. In 1985 they did it again. From a distance, Mickey Harte observed and admired. This was a thinking man's team.

Back then that was a very rare species. "Before that at club level," says Harte, "it was just play off the cuff and let the best man do what they do. But because Augher had such a small pick they couldn't play by conventional rules."

For one they rarely played the same central spine for two consecutive championship matches. Brendan McKenna might operate at full forward in one game, centre back the next; Tony's brother Paul in the corner forward one day, centre-forward the next.

They made full use of the width of the pitch. Up to '82, their two wing-backs had seen themselves as limited hunter and gatherers of the ball to lay off to someone like Eugene or Brendan McKenna. Under Donnelly they transformed into two dynamic, attacking wing backs. "You'd have the likes of Trillick playing a diamond around the middle of the field," says Donnelly "to try and smother Eugene and Seamus Daly, so we had to have an outlet to get the ball to them."

While Harte was coaching Tyrone minor and under-21 teams, Donnelly was raising a young family and running an ironing service when he wasn't teaching; helping current Tyrone trainer Fergal McCann out with the Augher under-14s and 16s was the extent of his coaching for a good few years. When Harte was appointed county manager in 2002 though he wanted Donnelly in with him. But Donnelly's clubmate Eugene McKenna had been a member of the outgoing management and had been up against Harte for the post; it wouldn't go down well to be seen to have gone against Eugene. When Harte called again two years later though, Donnelly came on board officially.

It was daunting at first. He'll never forget their opening McKenna Cup game that year, against Cavan in Breffni when Harte asked him to say a few words at half-time. Peter Canavan and Chris Lawn were both playing. "I thought to myself, 'Christ, what am I going to tell the two boys, me here with my two counties from the '80s?' But Mickey told me, 'Donnelly, shut up; they'll listen to you surely.' So it was a deep breath and off I
went."

It went down well. "The players immediately realised that this was not your typical, benign drivel," says Harte. "I often say half-time should be about information, not noise. Tony never comes in with a rant, it's always very insightful, calculated stuff. It's the same on the line. He sees what nobody else sees. The confidence I get from having him on the line is total. Because in live time, you make calls not after you've read the papers, or seen it on video or after a Monday morning chat with 10 different people. It's as it happens and he's as good as there is at that."

Probably their finest moment was Dublin, 2005. The litany of switches at half-time in the drawn game are legendary, but some are forgotten. For instance, Philly Jordan played that second half at corner back.

"We felt Ricey [Ryan McMenamin] would give us some drive at wing-back," recalls Donnelly, "so we switched him there and Philly says to Seán Cavanagh, 'I'm not on!' Seán says, 'No, you're corner-back.' Philly said afterwards, he didn't know which was the bigger shock, thinking he was off or at corner-back! But your play starts from your full-back line and if you have someone like Philly who can burst out, it breaks the next line and suddenly the whole field opens up.

"The key that day was Ciaran Whelan. At half-time I said Whelan was the oxygen for Dublin – their crowd, their forwards, everything. In the first half he had won six clean balls and we said to Joe [McMahon], 'Joe, you have to step on that oxygen line.'"

For Harte, it's little expressions like that players can relate to, and, when Tony feels the need, laugh at. Before last year's All Ireland quarter-final against Dublin on a horrendously wet day, Donnelly had spoken about what Tyrone would do if Brian Dooher won the toss and Tyrone were "playing against the tide". It just created that little ripple of soft laughs every big day needs.

It was Donnelly in the dressing rooms before they played Louth in last year's qualifiers, who spotted that Ciaran Gourley had gone a week without shaving. "Ah, spot the teacher just on holidays!" Ryan McMenamin heard that. Hey, there might be something in that... Donnelly never joined the bearded brothers. He just kept to the moustache and kept in the background, laughing and plotting away. He wouldn't want to be anywhere else. Harte wouldn't want anyone else by his side either.

[Fuzzman]

Very interesting article indeed.
Just shows that just cos Mickey is quite religious and doesn't drink himself, he respects other people's choices and doesn't judge them cos of how they look or what they do outside of GAA.

Just cos Tony wasn't a great player he still showed Mickey he has a great Footballing brain.
Wouldn't it be class if you could hear what he and Harte were saying during matches like one of them wee Ref radios.

[RedandGreenSniper]

I meant to ask the Tyrone lads what sort of influence yer man has or whether he was just a yes man for Harte and then Shannon does this article. While there's no doubting that Donnelly seems to be an astute man, there's also no doubting that Harte is the boss. Shannon couldn't even give Donnelly a title - he's not a selector because only one man picks the team and he's not an assistant manager because he doesn't yield that much influence. A confidant is what he got labelled as I think

[Sandy Hill]

Did the Rev McAleer jump or was he pushed?

[Rudi]

Ah Mr Shannon, forever a favourite of us Rossies. Gave a more accurate description of the whole Maughan - Ros supporters issue, than all the other alleged sports journalists combined.

"If Roscommon supporters were customers, they would have taken their business elsewhere a long time ago"

priceless.Good man Mr Shannon I do enjoy your articles, unlike the other plagiarised, regurgitated rubbish.

[orangeman]

Ah Mr Shannon, forever a favourite of us Rossies. Gave a more accurate description of the whole Maughan - Ros supporters issue, than all the other alleged sports journalists combined.

"If Roscommon supporters were customers, they would have taken their business elsewhere a long time ago"

priceless.Good man Mr Shannon I do enjoy your articles, unlike the other plagiarised, regurgitated rubbish.

Good one alright.

[Over the Bar]

Did the Rev McAleer jump or was he pushed?

Where to?  He hasn't gone anywhere.  Still very much part of the coalition of greatness!

[Fuzzman]

We're seeing a lot more tactics in GAA nowadays rather than just yer 100% commitment chats.

Do any coaches or managers try certain "plays" or "moves" such as the whole FF line running out at speed and leaving space behind them for a HF or MF to run into and be straight thru on goal?

[RedandGreenSniper]

Mayo, under Mickey Moran, worked a good one in an FBD game against the Rossies in 2006 from the throw-in. The two corner-forwards ran straight out to the forty-five metre line, bringing the corner backs with them. The full-forward ran diagonally and then when the midfielder (David Brady I think) won the throw-in he carried the ball and then he lofted it over the top for centre-half forward Ger Brady (who has blinding pace) to run onto. He picked up the ball, was clean through on goal, and buried it to the back of the net. Worked a treat but then Roscommon will always fall for something like that 

[Puckoon]

Mayo, under Mickey Moran, worked a good one in an FBD game against the Rossies in 2006 from the throw-in. The two corner-forwards ran straight out to the forty-five metre line, bringing the corner backs with them. The full-forward ran diagonally and then when the midfielder (David Brady I think) won the throw-in he carried the ball and then he lofted it over the top for centre-half forward Ger Brady (who has blinding pace) to run onto. He picked up the ball, was clean through on goal, and buried it to the back of the net. Worked a treat but then Roscommon will always fall for something like that 

Christ Ive the coffee all over myself after that one.

[Estimator]

Mayo, under Mickey Moran, worked a good one in an FBD game against the Rossies in 2006 from the throw-in. The two corner-forwards ran straight out to the forty-five metre line, bringing the corner backs with them. The full-forward ran diagonally and then when the midfielder (David Brady I think) won the throw-in he carried the ball and then he lofted it over the top for centre-half forward Ger Brady (who has blinding pace) to run onto. He picked up the ball, was clean through on goal, and buried it to the back of the net. Worked a treat but then Roscommon will always fall for something like that 

He did exactly the same 'tactic' for Derry against Waterford (I think) in the NFL a few years ago at Screen.  PB lined out at WHF, when the ball was throwin in, PB sprinted diagonally towards goals, the entire FF line cleared out in all directions.  Doc won the throw in, punt pass to PB, and goal.  Looked very simple.

[behind the wire]

Mayo, under Mickey Moran, worked a good one in an FBD game against the Rossies in 2006 from the throw-in. The two corner-forwards ran straight out to the forty-five metre line, bringing the corner backs with them. The full-forward ran diagonally and then when the midfielder (David Brady I think) won the throw-in he carried the ball and then he lofted it over the top for centre-half forward Ger Brady (who has blinding pace) to run onto. He picked up the ball, was clean through on goal, and buried it to the back of the net. Worked a treat but then Roscommon will always fall for something like that 

That a john morrison tactic. i remember him teaching us that when we were playing corn na og at the abbey. he told us the fastest goal he ever had using that tactic was 8 seconds. i tried to get the lads at the club to try it but we never win the throw in!

[RedandGreenSniper]

Mayo, under Mickey Moran, worked a good one in an FBD game against the Rossies in 2006 from the throw-in. The two corner-forwards ran straight out to the forty-five metre line, bringing the corner backs with them. The full-forward ran diagonally and then when the midfielder (David Brady I think) won the throw-in he carried the ball and then he lofted it over the top for centre-half forward Ger Brady (who has blinding pace) to run onto. He picked up the ball, was clean through on goal, and buried it to the back of the net. Worked a treat but then Roscommon will always fall for something like that 

That a john morrison tactic. i remember him teaching us that when we were playing corn na og at the abbey. he told us the fastest goal he ever had using that tactic was 8 seconds. i tried to get the lads at the club to try it but we never win the throw in!

I got our minors to try it once for a championship match but our midfielder was too keen and ran right through his marker and gave away a free, with a massive gaping hole in their defence!