ALL-IRELAND SFC QUARTER-FINAL: Keith Duggantackles the myth that Mickey Harte's side have been mostly unchanged down the years by looking at the subtle nature of change that keeps them at the top

ONE OF the most significant results for Tyrone this year had nothing to do with any of Mickey Harte’s storied team, but was instead delivered by tomorrow’s Red Hand generation. In winning the Ulster minor title, Tyrone defeated Armagh by 1-14 to 0-5.

Scorelines at this grade can often be lopsided but just the previous September Armagh had been crowned All-Ireland champions. The Ulster final reversal marked a telling reclamation of supremacy by Tyrone.

As the senior team gear up to challenge for a fourth All-Ireland title, there has been plenty of comment about the unchanging nature of Harte’s teams.

The effervescence of players like Ryan McMenamin, Conor Gormley, Brian Dooher and Pascal McConnell seem immune to wear and tear. But the idea that the team never changes is not quite true either. When you look at Tyrone’s notable underage successes – the minor All-Ireland winning teams of 2001, 2004 and 2008, they do contain some now familiar names. But it is equally true that the super-structure of the Tyrone team is held together by the minor generation that Harte himself guided through back in 1997 and 1998.

Raymond Monroe is the current Tyrone minor manager and has been in charge of that set-up for the last five years. Peter Harte, centre back on the 2008 All-Ireland winning team has emerged as the player from that recent vintage to feature most prominently in Harte’s team.

“Kyle Coney is also there. Niall Rogers and Ronan McNabb would also be in and around the squad but I suppose about 90 players would have passed through our hands in the five years that I have been in charge and they are the only ones to have made it through to senior level so far.”

Monroe doesn’t believe that this is necessarily a bad thing and points out that the majority of the players are still very young: there is time for them to make it through. Nonetheless, it highlights the vast gulf between life as a teenage football star and the reality of progressing to wear the county jersey at senior grade.

In 2004, Tyrone beat Kerry by 0-12 to 0-10 in the All-Ireland final. Of that team, Colm Cavanagh and Aidan Cassidy are the most prominent names.

Raymond Mulgrew, who seemed to announce glittering senior credentials with a scintillating display against Donegal four years ago, features regularly from the bench but has not been able to command a first team place. In 2001, Tyrone became All-Ireland champions after hammering Dublin in an All-Ireland minor final replay.

Goalkeeper John Devine, defender Dermot Carlin, play-anywhere man Joe McMahon, Seán Cavanagh, Martin Penrose and Tommy McGuigan all started that day and went on to win senior medals under Harte.

“If you look at the team that started the Ulster final against Monaghan, it had a good representation from those teams,” says Liam Donnelly, the manager of both those Tyrone minor successes.

Most of those playing would have been tipped for bigger things but Donnelly agrees that there are several footballers whom he would have felt were set for long Tyrone careers who have not made the transition to senior football.

“There are a number of players that I would have had that I definitely felt were set to have senior careers with Tyrone and for one reason or another, that has not happened.

“Obviously Mickey had the minor team in 1998 and he brought a lot of those players through and they went on and won the All-Ireland in 2003 and went on from there. So it was probably quite difficult for some of the younger players to try and make an impression.

“And they haven’t disappeared because many of them are still here in Tyrone playing very good club football. But there are a limited number of places and that is just one of the consequences. To be honest, I was involved with the Tyrone minors from 1999 to 2005 and there was an awful amount of talent coming through. And we were left with the problem of who to leave out.

“You felt that there were very talented youngsters who were, well, not discarded because they were looked after with their clubs. But there were cases where we were leaving out boys who would have made it onto most minor panels.

“But again, the under-21 bracket was there for them to aim for because that is a crucial grade for finding players who may not quite have made it at minor but prove to be good senior players. Some players progress at different levels.”

The Tyrone underage system is tailored to bring players through. St Patrick’s Dungannon and Omagh CBS are habitual contenders at MacRory and Hogan Cup level and the framework for coaching youngsters at club level in Tyrone is solid.

Monroe believes that the county is just fortunate to be enjoying a period when good players come through every year and although he is perpetuating Tyrone’s modern legacy of superb underage teams, he sounds a cautious note with it.

“When players enjoy a level of success so young in life, it can often diminish their appetite to go on at senior level. In a way, the work is only beginning for a footballer when he is finished with minor and a lot of factors come into play in terms of dictating whether they will play senior football.

“And I think that if any county gets one player from a minor team coming through to the senior county squad, it is not a bad return. Having too many talented players coming through at once can cause its own headaches and I think Mickey Harte is very careful in terms of knowing when to bring a player through so that they are not thrown in at the deep end.”

It is unquestionably true that Harte has a special faith in the Tyrone minor generation of 1997/’98 who made up the bulk of his under-21 All-Ireland-winning teams in 2001 and 2002. The best of those went on to form the nucleus of his three All-Ireland winning sides.

To say that the Tyrone team picks itself is an exaggeration but Tyrone have their Dependables; the players who seem to peak for championship games season after season.

“Without question. Conor Gormley is a perfect example of that,” Donnelly says.

“Here was a player who, by his own admission probably wasn’t going as well in the league as he might have been but he came back lighter and fitter and in the championship he seems to have rediscovered his best form. And that group of Tyrone players all seem to have that ability to time their form.”

It makes breaking into the senior squad even more difficult. When Tyrone won its first senior All-Ireland in 2003, Devine, McMenamin, Gormley, Philip Jordan, Cavanagh, Kevin Hughes, Brian Dooher and Owen Mulligan started: all will probably start against Dublin this afternoon as well. Enda McGinley lined out at corner forward seven years ago: he is just coming back to full fitness this summer after a long injury.

Stephen O’Neill, a substitute in 2003, is also just returning to full fitness as the championship enters its crucial phase. Brian McGuigan has been used sparingly by Harte in Ulster but it will be no surprise if he had an increasingly important – and in limited minutes – for Tyrone this year.

But for the grace of God, Cormac McAnallen would surely have been part of the Tyrone set-up this year too. Apart from the tragic death of the Eglish man and the retirement of Peter Canavan, the changes in the team have been so subtle that it can seem as if the team never changes.

But it has changed.

The key thing is that despite illusions to the contrary there is a full awareness within Tyrone that this generation cannot go on forever.

“We are optimistic,” Donnelly says of the Tyrone players waiting in the wings. “It is true that it doesn’t ever take care of itself. It requires constant monitoring and coaching. Also, the gap is closing in that many other counties have adapted similar policies and they are beginning to pay off for them.

“I know a lot of counties are beginning to put a lot in at under-21 grade and that is why it is harder now to win an Ulster title at that grade than at any other time I can remember. But it has become a ‘cool’ thing now for youngsters to want to play for Tyrone. It is what they aspire to. And that can only be a good thing.”

For the Red Hand, certainly. The rest may hold a different view.