Kieran Shannon: There was no second chance for anyone in 2021 — except Tyrone

Outside of Donegal-Derry with Paddy McBrearty’s late point on the loop, the Monaghan-Armagh shootout in the shadow of the late Brendan Óg Ó Dufaigh’s tragic passing, and the latest episode in the never-ending saga that’s Mayo-Dublin, almost everything good about Championship 2021 stemmed from Tyrone’s thread in it.

This wasn’t an All Ireland like the one Dublin won last year where Mayo were the only proper side Dessie Farrell’s men had to overcome. Long before they also saw off Mayo by an identical scoreline to the 2020 decider’s, Tyrone had to navigate Donegal, Monaghan and most crucially Kerry in ferocious contests.

Without Tyrone as well as a backdoor, Championship 2021 would have been the most underwhelming football championship since 1999. Thankfully we didn’t go without both.

Tyrone though should be considerably more grateful for that mercy than the rest of us.

Back in April we were told by the GAA that for a second straight year they couldn’t accommodate a qualifier system because it would have required a couple of extra weeks that they simply didn’t have; for the sake of the clubs the All-Ireland had to be completed by the end of August.

But as it turned out when push came to shove they could find those extra couple of weeks; the All-Ireland could run into September.

It still doesn’t quite sit or feel right. The Championship was – and supporters of the sport were – the poorer for so few games outside the dismal provincial championships, especially the absence of an All Ireland quarter-final stage. But the real people who lost out were the players.

Inter-county careers are fleeting at the best of times. If you play for six, eight years for your county, you’ve done well. Because of the format adopted for 2020 and 2021, a lot of footballers have now gone a quarter or even a third of their career having played just two or three championship games while their hurling counterparts were guaranteed at least twice that number. A lot of footballers from other counties should wish that the GPA was as assertive as Tyrone were in seeking fair play and advancing their case on the grounds of player welfare. Because as it turned out the same authorities that couldn’t accommodate 28 counties with an extra fortnight in the championship could accommodate one who felt vaccination was “a conundrum”, in the words of Fergal Logan, rather than a necessity for its players.

You have to admire Tyrone though for standing their ground. That now makes it two for two for the county in fighting their corner during the biggest public health crises this country has experienced in the new millennium. During the 2001 foot-and-mouth crisis, it looked as if the U21 championship was going to continue without them until Mickey Harte won support for the competition to be delayed and his team’s fate would be decided on the field.

Twenty years on Harte’s legacy endures, not just in the county’s willingness to fight for their rights, but in how Tyrone expect to win All-Irelands once they reach them. Almost all the Tyrone management and playing panel worked with or played under him. Although Mayo had a handful of veterans who were playing in their seventh All-Ireland final, on average both panels had contested the same number of All Ireland semi-finals. Harte kept them near the top table, though the county board have been justified in sensing they needed his former captain over the team for the county to get back sitting at the top of that top table.

They won because they the most tactically adaptable team in the championship, and especially in the final. A term you hear more and more in sport is a side looking to silence their opponent’s crowds. But it’s much easier to say than do, especially when you’re encountering a crowd as loud and as passionate as Mayo’s. But that’s what Tyrone did last Saturday. By controlling the tempo of the game they took the Mayo supporters out of the game.

Mayo in contrast lost because they weren’t as adaptable. Outside of 2016 and 2017, it’s been a recurring problem for them. Their theme going into this final was Be Brave. But in future that has to become Be Smart. In these pages yesterday Éamonn Fitzmaurice likened their playing style to the famous charge of the light brigade which prompted a French commander to proclaim, “It’s magnificent but it’s not war; it’s madness.” As Fitzmaurice added, when Mayo can’t over-run teams they can struggle to score and are also vulnerable to the counter.

There is no better manager than James Horan to build and rebuild a team but Mayo need him to get better at setting up one to win the last game or two of the year. As a county they have yet to marry the best qualities of Horan with the best of the Rochford files.

At least next year they should have Cillian O’Connor back. And thankfully there’ll be plenty more games for everyone as well, whatever format there is for the championship.