Owen Mulligan has hit out at Sean Cavanagh’s “embarrassing” comments on Mickey Harte’s position as Tyrone manager.
Speaking on the Sunday Game highlights show following Tyrone’s All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Kerry, Cavanagh said that “there does come a time when that baton does have to be passed on” with Harte having completed 17 seasons in the job.
Malachy O’Rourke was sitting alongside Cavanagh, who jokingly suggested that he had seen the former Monaghan manager “filling in his CV” earlier in the day.
Cavanagh played under Harte for 15 seasons and the pair have had a strained relationship at times but former teammate Mulligan felt the long-serving boss deserved better.
Writing in his Paddy Power News column, he said: “Sean always has lots of notes in front of him during those broadcasts, but he must have lost the page on what Harte has brought to Tyrone.
“Incredibly, he summed Mickey Harte with just six words, ‘an amazing servant for the county’.
“That was before he introduced the word ‘but’, and go on to cover it up with positive comments about previous management teams.
“Really, is that it Sean? Jesus! I know men that have served committees that are amazing servants for the county.
“But Harte has no equal in Tyrone management or coaching circles.
“He’s delivered 37 trophies in 28 years, 23 of those trophies with the Tyrone senior team.
“Mickey revolutionised the fortunes of county football in Tyrone, and all Sean can offer is six words on him before he went on to humiliate poor Malachy O’Rourke.
“Yes, Malachy and others inside the county might well be interested in the job, but they aren’t going to declare that when Harte still has another year to run on his current arrangement with the county board.”
However, Mulligan then went on to criticise Harte himself, claiming he has “lost his sharpness”.
He continued: “Harte will be sore, not because of Sean Cavanagh’s embarrassing comments, but because Tyrone let the semi-final slip away from them when it was there for the taking. Tactically, Peter Keane got one over on him.
“From the outside looking in, Mickey seems to have lost his sharpness.
“When we played under him, we emptied the tank on almost every run. Not because we had to, but because we were s**ting ourselves in case he spotted it and called us to the line.
“There are just too many things going unnoticed by Harte at the minute.
“Lads jogging about, marking space instead of close man-marking, substituting players that are playing well and leaving others on that have lost form. These things never happened before.”
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