Tyrone have always put performance ahead of popularity and while there was much praise for the level of play they achieved in beating Kerry last weekend, most neutral fans will be hoping for an end to the mayo drought when the All Ireland Final rolls around in ten days time.
The only one of Dublin’s All Ireland Finals over the last decade that tickets were easier to come by was the one against Tyrone with many of the tickets that go around the country finding their way towards Dublin as opposed to anyone else.
Anyone else bar Tyrone seemed to be the general feeling.
Few would admit to it and many if not most would be fans of Mickey Harte and wish well to Brian Dooher as a player of rare quality who has taken the step up to management with ease alongside Fergal Logan.
Peter Canavan is rightly hailed as one of the greats and so it is a mystery why Tyrone just seem to get people’s backs up.
The issues with Covid and the tactics employed to force a further delay to last Saturday’s Semi-Final have been analysed to death on mainstream and social media. they were nearly the reason for Pat Spiullane’s head exploding on RTÉ coverage from Croke Park but within Tyrone, they just put their heads down, did what they had to do and beat Kerry in a manner that few could have imagined.
Last night they kicked off a media night in Garvaghy with the opening request that this was a football night and that all questions should be about football and football only.
They would not entertain any questions relating to Covid, or to vaccination, or to delays to games. Just football.
It was perfectly within their right to do so. There is no obligation other than to the sport, the fans and sponsors, to say anything in advance of a game.
And they were happy to speak about football which after all is why they are in the spotlight, and all their own fans want of them.
It’s just that it doesn’t help endear them to the broader population. There is a line used by a particularly unpleasant football team in England that ‘no one likes us, we don’t care.’
Maybe there is a bit of that in Tyrone as well. Maybe it works to be the one that just does what they do. If it is a Tyrone pair of hands lifting Sam Maguire on September 11th it will just become a small part of what has been a very compelling story.
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