Neighbours may be defined by distance, but no distance can keep friends apart, and so Tyrone now find themselves lined up once again to meet Kerry.
After ending Monaghan's run at Croke Park – their third successive All-Ireland quarter-final defeat – Tyrone manager Mickey Harte was soon pondering his next opponents, with Kerry already waiting for them in the All-Ireland football semi-final on August 23rd.
“Aye, yes, Kerry again,” said Harte, after Tyrone’s four-point yet ultimately convincing win over Monaghan. Harte guided Tyrone to their last two All-Ireland titles, in 2008 and 2005, in both cases beating Kerry: they also beat Kerry in the 2003 All-Ireland semi-final.
“We had to be at our best today, and I think we were close to our best. We’ve been building nicely, through the qualifiers, and maybe the games we have been playing have served us very well.
“Now, whether we can improve or not, time will tell. But we will have to improve. Kerry are All-Ireland champions, have been around the block so many times, and that’s our challenge now. Kerry’s attack is a big strength of their team.”
Tyrone's nerves were tested towards the end, as Monaghan refused to give up hope, and with that tensions also spilled over – Monaghan losing Darren Hughes to a straight red card, with Paul Finley also retiring early on two yellows; Tyrone full back Ronan McNamee was also sent off on a second yellow.
“It probably was just a little frustration, spilling over,” said Harte. “It was a very intense game. The tackles were intense, from both teams. That was there to be seen. Players were being closed down, and it did get a bit unruly at the end, but that’s to be expected. The stakes were so high, and players just see a bit of redness.”
The backdoor route has clearly served Tyrone well, although Harte admits it wasn’t his first preference: “In hindsight, maybe, but I wanted to go through the front door. We weren’t handed a bad route, and that has us where we are now. But I still wouldn’t choose the qualifiers. It’s easy to say it now, after we’ve got another result like this.
There were no excuses from Malachy O’Rourke, the Monaghan manager conceding his team hadn’t played as well as they could: “It was a tough day at the office,” he said. “For much of the first half we just didn’t seem to have the same urgency about our play, or energy, that we had in the Ulster final.
“I don’t like using words like devastation and that, when you know there are more important things in life, but it’s cruel disappointment in there, and it will take a while to get over. We just found it very hard to penetrate them. In the second half, we were better, but still we were chasing the game.
“I thought our preparation was very good, three weeks since the Ulster final, with all the boys fit and ready to. So I just can’t put my finger on it. It’s bitterly disappointing, but in fairness to Tyrone, they always had that bit of daylight between us. And anytime we got a point, they came back down the field and got one back. So we have to say the better team won, even if our boys fought until the end.”
O’Rourke refused to make any big deal of the spate of cards towards the end, even the red card for Darren Hughes, for an apparently harmless pat on the head of Tyrone’s Tiernan McCann:
“Well no, I don’t honestly know what he (McCann) went down for. I’d be disappointed if it was that (harmless), but it was a big blow to us, even at that late stage, to lose Darren.
“Towards the end, when people get desperate to win, sometimes the tackling does get a bit ragged, from both sides, and that was trying to stop the momentum as well. I suppose the black card was brought in to stop that, but it hasn’t really.”
