WEA Supplement - Flipbook - Page 4
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FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 10 2021
www.irishnews.com
IN ASSOCIATION
WITH
ALL-IRELAND SFC FINAL
GEAR-ED
Kieran McGeary chooses his words wisely as he
tells Neil Loughran that Croke Park success against
fancied Kerry has whetted Tyrone’s appetite for
another major triumph...
K
IERAN McGeary
knew there was
no room for
another. Earlier in
the summer, the
Pomeroy man saw a postmatch interview cut short
after an expletive sneaked
through his teeth on live
TV amid the excitement
of victory over arch-rivals
Donegal.
Once the BBC’s Thomas
Kane went back to the
studio, the image of
McGeary’s cringing face
floated about Twitter for a
couple of hours until people
found something else to talk
about.
What wouldn’t escape the
consciousness so quickly,
however, was the brilliance
of his man-of-the-match
performance against the Tir
Chonaill that day.
Indeed, having fulfilled
a series of
different
roles
since his senior county
debut in 2016, the 25-yearold has been playing the
best football of his career at
a time when a transitioning
Tyrone needed him most.
After leading the charge
against Monaghan in the
rain-soaked Ulster final,
he was exceptional again
as Red Hands toppled
the Kingdom – making a
mockery of the Covid chaos
that ripped through the
panel during the month
before to send the AllIreland favourites flying out
the exit door.
As RTE’s man-of-the-match,
McGeary was sought out
immediately. This time,
though, there would be no
cutting away.
Hands on hips, chest
heaving, eyes red with the
emotion of it all, he steadied
himself, then spoke.
“They said we wouldn’t,
they said we couldn’t, I’ll
tell you what… we did.”
Talk about nailing it – he
couldn’t have captured the
mood any more perfectly,
McGeary grinning widely
as the Tyrone
support
raised the decibel level a
couple of notches while his
words rang around Croke
Park.
“I was watching every word
there right enough,” he said,
leaning against the team
bus an hour later, “I couldn’t
afford to slip up again.”
As one of the front-runners
in the shake-up for Player
of the Year, McGeary could
have said anything at all and
the Red Hand faithful would
likely have forgiven him.
It’s been that kind of a
campaign, one where his
spirit and sheer force of will
has helped breathe new life
into the post-Mickey Harte
era. Even with all that went
on behind the closed gates
at Garvaghey, beating Kerry
came as no shock to the
Tyrone players.
Only they knew what work
had been done, where they
were in relation to where
they would have wanted
to be. Seldom have they
travelled to Croke Park with
anything less than total
belief. Throw in a bit
of sniping from the
outside, as a cause
to cling to, and
the Red Hands
are in their
element.
Good Luck to
Matthew, Richard, Rory, Lee &
all the Tyrone Team.
from
Trillick St. Macartan’s GFC