Keith Duggandescribes how the Tyrone collective has always been more than the sum of its parts, despite the presence of so many free spirits

IT WAS the day of Tyrone's Ascension. 2003 begot 2005 begot 2008. In the days before this All-Ireland final, rightly or wrongly billed as the definitive match of the decade, there was much emphasis on the totality of the Tyrone team.

And yesterday, once again, as they stormed in the fading sunlight to their third All-Ireland in five years, there was, undeniably, the sense of watching the pieces of a complex and beautiful jigsaw falling into place.

But it was also a performance that illuminated the one thing that is often overlooked about this remarkable Red Hand squad: much as they radiate a complete team ethic, the Tyrone boys are nothing if not free spirits. They are nothing if not their own men.

Scenes from the underground in Croke park, circa 5pm: Ryan McMenamin, hirsute and grinning, leaning against the ball, his trouser legs rolled, reminiscing now about the nights of dark torture when he met up with Brian Dooher for extra training sessions.

"Nights running around Augher with no lights on. Think I was crying through most of them. I'm glad of them now though."

Even on bad days, there is always something of the black comedian about McMenamin and his eyes light up at the mention of Seán Cavanagh and that irrepressible one-man show.

"Aye. Big Frank," McMenamin said as though remembering an old friend that he hadn't thought of in a while.

"Big Frank always comes through for us in big games. If you watch Big Frank tonight he will be showing his best moves as well. But nah, he had one of those games. Seán deserves player of the year. He has carried us from the start."

McMenamin beamed all the more when the enquiries came as to the inspiration for Cavanagh's nickname. "You see that film 'Old School.' Frank the Tank," he explained and then he took his leave for the bar.

Elsewhere, Stephen O'Neill, the prodigal one, standing alone by the team bus and agreeably posing with fans for photographs before climbing on board, taking a seat and opening up a book for a quiet read.

Brian McGuigan wandering by, a dreamy smile on his face.

The Tyrone minor lads ambling around, drinking in the scene, perhaps rehearsing for the years ahead. Everywhere, though, the impression of players comfortable in their own skins, comfortable doing their own thing.

Earlier, when Mickey Harte sat down for the obligatory press conference, his mobile phone started to ring. Mickey was talking so he glanced at the instrument and murmured: "Better leave that."

It is probably about the only phone call that he didn't field all season. Even on the bleakest afternoons, Harte never shirked facing the music, answering the questions, responding to the criticism.

He did not need the vindication of this victory to secure his place in the pantheon of the granite GAA managers but at the same time, the quality and manner of this victory gives the man a slightly omnipotent dimension.

And as the phone kept ringing away, the audience must have wondered if it might have been God himself trying to get through - be that Peter Canavan or the Man Above. Both may have left a voice message.

For sure, spirituality has played a strong role in this Tyrone story. Hard work and the amalgamation of an exceptionally smart generation of footballers has also been a key ingredient. New ambition - coinciding perhaps with peace time in Ulster - contributed to it too. The extraordinary series of genuine tragedies that have afflicted the Tyrone squad and their families in the last 10 years also shaped this latest rising.

When Brian McGuigan called the team "a family" yesterday evening, he wasn't just paying lip service. He meant it. Families row. And they joke. They stick tight. The frivolity of growing beards was part of it. Few teams would have the lightness of spirit to show up to meet the President looking like the late vintage Mamas and Papas.

And there were other spices. Calling Stephen O'Neill back from the oblivion of intercounty retirement with no resentment, no fall-out meant surely that Tyrone had hit a rare wavelength in team harmony.

The same was true with the 11th-hour team changes, including the demotion of Brian McGuigan, the man of the match on this stage three years ago, for Martin Penrose. McGuigan didn't bat an eyelid: McGuigan was probably the most thrilled man in the capital city yesterday evening. You listened to Mickey Harte talk about those two changes and you got an inkling, just a glimpse, into the cool methodology at work behind the passion and speed at which Tyrone play this game.

"Joe McMahon - along with his beard - is a man for any day," Harte smiled. "Obviously we felt the power of the two big men inside, although Ciaran Gourley had been doing a good job for us - we felt he wouldn't be able to cope with that physical threat. Joe is big and physical and we felt that if we could match that in there we would get enough of the scraps to make do.

"So although Kerry's long ball was threatening it never really caused the havoc it was intended to do. And we knew we had lots of men. There were loads of men who had every right to be on this team. So this was always going to be a 19- or 20-man game.

"It was always going to be a question of getting the timing right. It is not magic. The key to getting the result was pure heart work. And [like Ciarán Gourley] Brian had a right to get in at 11 as well. But we felt that the pace might leave him lacking when he was needed most.

"And he proved when he came in that that was the time to have all his guile and those little touches and comfort on the ball and the vision he has is what he needed at the time."

With Tyrone, it has always been about the greater cause. Not for the first time, they took the field wearing black armbands yesterday, in respect for the goalkeeper John Devine, whose father John Snr died on Saturday evening.

It meant Pascal McConnell was sprung from the bench and he responded heroically. McConnell is, of course, one of the gilded class of 1998, the minor bunch with whom Harte crafted his first All-Ireland title as a Tyrone manager.

Yesterday, thoughts of those teenage years must have drifted through their minds as Harte called them to arms once again.

"As Mickey said, we won't know how great we are until we are finished," McMenamin reasoned.

"He said: Do we want to be the boys, in 20 years' time that let Kerry withe three-in-a-row or do we want to be remembered as the team that stopped Kerry. He put that to a lot of the boys today. And I think we responded in style."

What a glittering decade it has been since. Tyrone's greatness should not be promoted as Kerry's expense. Instead, it should be celebrated in its own right.

"Everyone's sweet," grinned big Pascal McConnell in the mellow aftermath. "03, 05, 08. It's like a dream." Jigsaw falling into place.

The Red Hand complete again.