On November 25, 2020, Brian Dooher and Fergal Logan were announced as the new joint managers of the Tyrone Senior Football team. 

I don’t know how their first talk to the team when they would have outlined their vision for Tyrone football went but having seen how they’ve performed in 2021, you can have some idea.

On that first day, the players might have listened with rising excitement. Some might have been concerned about their own places or they might have been sceptical of Dooher and Logan. Maybe the management team spoke about a player centred approach which is the kind of thing everybody says on day one. The trick is delivering it on day 101 and beyond.

Any manager can use a term like player centred. What’s important is ensuring it doesn’t sound like jargon and the way to do that is to walk the talk. Dooher and Logan clearly have done this, as Jim Gavin did. 

Jim’s first address to us was mesmerising and painted an exciting picture but more importantly he delivered on what he said he would. His management was player centred, not as a nice line on a press release, but in reality. 

The Holy Trinity

Jim had a holy trinity and the player was at the centre of everything. There were three aspects of a player’s life – personal, professional and playing – he said. All three would be treated equally. 

This is an idea common among the good managers and the bad, but with the bad ones, he says it one day and the next the player is making a five-hour round trip for a gym session on a Wednesday night and wondering about that equilibrium when in reality the only thing they are at the centre of is a long commute. Jim was different.

One example immediately comes to mind. Cian O’Sullivan had his tax exams at the beginning of one summer and he was told to go away and focus on them. Jim thought medium term. He knew having Cian back in August with the exams taken care of and no danger of a resit was good for Cian and good for the team . He could go away and there would be no consequences.

What it did was inspire loyalty. You felt Jim had your back as a person as well as a player. Other players were looked after if they were vulnerable or going through tough times and it all went to build trust. Suddenly ‘player-centred’ wasn’t a phrase on a whiteboard, it had meaning.

As a result, you’d do anything for the team and for management who’d look out for you. I hear other managers talking about putting their players first but more often than not, it seems to be their own interest they’re serving rather than the team’s.

Dooher and Logan succeeded Mickey Harte, who had led the county for 18 years and stacked up three All Ireland wins throughout his term. 

Mickey was a phenomenal leader and one who many people outside of the county felt an emotional connection with. He led them to their first All-Ireland in 2003, his first year in charge, and in 2005 and 2008 to cap off a successful decade. However, 14 years passed since their last victory and aside from a showdown in 2018 versus Dublin, they have failed to experience the glory that Tyrone people had come accustomed to enjoying throughout the noughties. The writing was on the wall for several years, and the feeling in the county was there was a need for change. 

Wanting change is the easy bit, making change effective is hard and that is what Tyrone have done.  

Change in leadership, in sport or any walk of life, can be a risk and, in some instances, cause disruption and chaos. For a player within a team sport, there is a fear of what this change will mean for the group, but initially that fear is centred around your own status within the group. 

I can remember clearly driving through Clontarf in 2009 when my phone rang. I had made one start the year before and come off at half time so I wasn’t sure what the new man Pat Gilroy would make of me, maybe my intercounty career was already over. 

Gilroy was a from a big club too, a St Vincent’s man and as a Fingallian club man, I wasn’t sure what he would think of me, or if he’d even thought of me.

“Paul, it’s Pat Gilroy here, love your style of play, love your intensity, I want you to be a central player in the squad.”

This was all I needed to provide some reassurance about where I stood.

Every player, bar none, experiences that uncomfortable feeling throughout this transitionary period whereby they believe they may be surplus to requirements or don’t fit the new strategy. That fear of deselection can bring out the best and the worst of individuals. When executed correctly, it can take individuals and the collective out of their comfort zone and bring them to places where they can grow and develop. 

Saturday night’s All Ireland victory was an example of how a change of leadership, when executed effectively, can result in a positive impact within a group. 

Understanding how to nurture the squad is something Tyrone have clearly done well. Dooher and Logan inherited a very talented group of players with solid foundations from a psychological, physical, technical and tactical point of view. Sometimes, what is needed are new voices and a new vision, which this new leadership team has brought. Some managers can overreact and make change for change’s sake. The best know what to keep and what to throw out. 

In the case of Dooher and Logan’s transition into the joint leadership role with Tyrone, it has clearly been executed with precision, and the outcome has been remarkable. Since they took over, I have been so impressed with every facet of this management team’s leadership of this group of talented players. They have managed several adverse episodes to date. A disrupted pre-season and off-season due to Covid- 19 restrictions. A shortened league structure culminated in a devastating defeat by Kerry. A breakout of Covid within the camp that led to a myriad of issues, including some brinksmanship with the GAA administration, nationwide media attention and external ‘noise’ that can derail a team’s preparations. However, they took it all within their stride and seemed to learn from each of these experiences.

It is clear they have cultivated a culture within the group centred around the collective. It reminds me of the culture we developed under Jim’s leadership. We were a collective, and no individual was more important than the group – the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack, as we would remind ourselves. This Tyrone team has similar qualities of work rate, selflessness, doing your job for the team, learning from each game, playing in the present and above all else, enjoying the journey.

One of the ways Jim did this was through opposition analysis. We had the analysts as part of the backroom team but the onus was on players to know the opposition. I might be told to look at the opposition kickout and then as part of a group of six, we would look into it before making a presentation to the squad. 

If we missed anything, that would be brought up at the meeting so our analysis was interrogated but it also had many benefits.

Buy in

The players felt they were being listened to and that their opinions mattered. This, it became clear, was how a player centred approach worked in practice. As a result, the players had more buy in because they were helping to shape the strategy; most crucially, it helped you to think on your feet. 

Having done that analysis, I found that when things went wrong on the field, it was invaluable. Suddenly you weren’t a passenger waiting for direction but actively looking for solutions.

It is abundantly clear against Mayo that Tyrone players knew their role, and they know how it is one chink in the armour of an overall collective performance. They all looked in perfect sync throughout the championship, and I know from experience this is not an easy task, particularly considering they had ten months to ensure there was clarity. 

Last week I mentioned what Tyrone needed to improve on, their kick-out strategy, highlighting that if they didn’t focus their intention on this, Mayo would capitalise on it. Morgan’s kick-outs on Saturday was one of the main pillars for their performance. This says so much about this group and their leadership.

They identified this area for development and turned it into a cornerstone of their performance in the biggest game of their lives. The origin of their second goal was direct from one of these long kick-outs. This takes evaluation, analysis and honest conversations amongst a group and directly to individuals that can only be successfully had when there is a trust that individuals are only being singled out for the betterment of the collective. Another sign that this management team are layering onto their capabilities and performances, game by game. 

The Tyrone management team have empowered players to play a leading role, and they responded. They have leaders right through the team; Morgan, Hampsey, McNamee, Harte, Meyler, Mc Geary, McShane, etc. These players who were good players last year looked like great players and leaders this year. That is not a coincidence. 

I am sure this group will be celebrating this success this week and over the weeks ahead, but I am also sure that this shrewd management team will soon evaluate the year and begin building for what is to come. This group of players are not going anywhere. They are young, hungry, ambitious and highly talented, and they will see there is an opportunity to do what no other Tyrone team has done before and win back-to-back All Irelands. 

When the dust settles, they will need to honestly appraise what went well, what changes are required and what innovations are needed. What they did this year will not be good enough next year; it never is. This mindset is imperative to achieve back-to-back successes. They need to raise their internal standards and expectations to ensure they maintain their marginal advantage. As the adage goes, it is best to fix the roof while the sun is shining, and I have no doubt these impressive leaders will do just that.  

In the aftermath of the game, a lot of the media focus has been on Mayo. That’s understandable but also tells you something of how the media works. The Mayo team are well known, the performance of big name individuals can be analysed and counter-analysed and none of it sheds much light on Gaelic football as it is played today.

Tyrone were written off this year and, in victory, it seems as if something similar is happening.

As Mayo are dissected, something else is being missed, perhaps because, even now, Tyrone are a mystery.

They are the story of the year: an ultra modern team, well conditioned, tactically astute and selfless. They are on the cusp of greatness and one day, we may be asking what we can learn from them rather than wondering how they did it.