A Portuguese Gaeilgoir

Maitiú Monaghan

The club brought in an old-school coach this season - a fella from Tyrone.

There was some good thinking behind it; in our never-ending search for perfection, we have leaned heavily into sports science, stats, speed work and such things.

But a counterweight was needed, you can’t put all your footballs in one bag.

He’s handsome for his age, with a tan that suggests he is spending more and more time in Portugal.

Usually he’s happy-go-lucky, with a smile and a joke for every man on the panel, even if the punchline can sometimes be lost in translation.

He insists on only speaking to me as Gaeilge - because his grandchildren go to a Gaelscoil and he’s trying to practice.

That way he can look perplexed when I ask why I’m not getting any game time or confused when I ask him pointed “journalist-y” questions about Tyrone club football.

The same man is baffled that we aren’t a Senior club but is equally baffled that every team that beats us is playing Intermediate football. That happens quite often.

He doesn’t pay much attention while we do our plyometrics, box jumps, and prehabilitation - but comes into his own when he feels we’ve been wronged.

A nameless, faceless, man is always telling him that we’re considered soft. The figure is laughing at him, laughing at us. Even our mothers don’t think we’ll win.

Some of the speeches are rambling, and it isn’t always clear where they’re going - I don’t think even he knows.

But if you can link losing a 1990s table quiz to tracking back to make a tackle - and people listen - well, that is impressive.

I always preferred Armagh’s flinty approach to confrontation than Tyrone’s.

But Mickey Harte 2.0 is doing a fine job.

Method to the madness

Most people associate St. Tiernach’s Park with sunny, Ulster Final Sundays, when it feels small and the noise gets trapped inside like a bowl.

That’s never my first thought. When I close my eyes, I see it empty, in the dying light with sheets of rain hammering down on grass that does its best growing after the county season ends.

Still, any night you get to play on the big field is a good night. The rain at training could do nothing to dampen our spirits ahead of a must-win Championship game.

Our mild-mannered coach wasn’t buying into the romance this week.

Waspish, he had other ideas. “What has you in such good form,” he barked. “Do you not realise you’ve a game on Saturday? You should be on edge, you should be difficult to live with.”

There was no need for anonymous critiques this week. He was happy to put his own byline to descriptive commentary on our approach to such a big game.

Afterwards he calmed down, and delivered a rousing Tyrone Ted-Talk, an epic expletive filled monologue that eventually came to the conclusion that victory was, in fact, possible.

It was dark by the time we finished up on Tuesday night, and I considered the possibility that our coach may possibly be the only person in the province who hasn’t noticed that St. Tiernach’s Park doesn’t have flood lights.

Still, we left the place an inch taller, ready to unleash our prescribed bad moods on our unsuspecting friends and families.

Come Saturday evening we all had a bee in our bonnets and were not the most hospitable of hosts.

The club hasn’t gone buck mad with heat maps and satellite imagery and such contraptions. All they’ve got is a disillusioned sports reporter with a clip board and a dream.

Sports science plays an ever-increasing role in club football, but it’s still largely left outside the changing room at half-time.

All that’s needed is a mid-Ulster accent, an extensive vocal range, and a colourful use of what passes for the English language in those parts.

It did the trick, as we came from behind to win, in doing so booking our place in the club’s first IFC quarter-final in 20 years.

Naturally, we were all delighted at full-time, and scheming of ways to make the most of a rare Saturday with no football on the Sunday.

Qualifying for the knockout stages is good news in any language. But it means we have another game next week.

Ní bheidh sé sásta an tseachtain seo.

He won’t be happy this week.