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Mickey Harte with his Tyrone players after today's game. Morgan Treacy/INPHO
Harte Felt

Mickey Harte: 'They just seem to be sad people who are negative all the time'

The Tyrone boss took aim at their recent critics after Saturday’s qualifier win.

MICKEY HARTE HAS cut loose and labelled critics of his system ‘sad people who are negative all the time’.

Last year’s captain Sean Cavanagh is among those critics and the recently retired ex-Footballer of the Year sparked a war of words in the Red Hands camp with recent comments.

Cavanagh claimed that Harte’s management style is ‘autocratic’ at times and said his defensive system stifled the development of a number of potentially ‘marquee’ forwards over the years.

Tyrone assistant manager Gavin Devlin hit back with a withering comment that Tyrone may have failed to win an All-Ireland in recent seasons because of the ‘calibre of captaincy’.

Asked directly about former ally Cavanagh’s comments, Harte initially laughed before growing visibly frustrated throughout the course of his response, climaxing with the claim that Tyrone’s critics need to ‘look in the mirror and brighten up a wee bit’.

“I always said it to people that everyone’s entitled to their own opinion,” said Harte, whose side beat Meath by a point in an epic qualifier tie on Saturday evening.

“If that’s the way people feel about something then they can share that with whoever they like.

“I’m happy to stand on my own two feet and I’m happy to do things the way we try to do them for the best, for the betterment of Tyrone football, and for the players we have at our disposal.

Mickey Harte Tyrone football boss Mickey Harte. Morgan Treacy / INPHO Morgan Treacy / INPHO / INPHO

“And if somebody thinks differently then that’s their prerogative to do so. But I’m very happy with the way we’re putting together our team and how they play football and I don’t think anybody can complain about the excitement that was out there today.

“Every game isn’t going to be classic football and I ask the question too, people say about defensive football and low scoring games, would you rather have a low-scoring game that you don’t know the outcome until the end or would you rather have somebody at half-time down in a game from anything from 12 to 20 points? You’d only sleep for the second-half of that match.

“Is that more exciting than a game that’s defensive but quality defensive? I don’t believe so. So some of the people that are spouting about that just seem to have an agenda which is negative and they just seem to be sad people who are negative all the time. So maybe they should look in the mirror and brighten up a wee bit and look at the bright side of life.”

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