Tyrone and Kerry name teams for All-Ireland semi-final

Tiernan McCann is free to play after having a proposed eight-week suspension ruled out of order by the GAA’s Central Hearings Committee in the early hours of Thursday morning.

McCann’s team-mate Conor Meyler also had the black card he picked up in the Monaghan game rescinded last night.

Mickey Harte and his backroom team have successfully devised a way in which the marriage between their defence and attack has blossomed this season.

“In order for Tyrone to win they will have to negate the influence of a few special players”.

“Dublin and Kerry now consider themselves “professional” and they see that Tyrone have come from nowhere this year”.

Kerry on the other hand looked very much like the unstoppable force when they banged in six goals in 17 minutes against Kildare, although that comes with the caveat that the Lilywhites appeared to mentally check out rather than try to stem the tide. You have to go back to the 1986 All-Ireland final for the last time Kerry were victorious.

“Kerry have to be positive”.

Kerry team: Brendan Kealy; Paul Murphy, Marc Ó Sé, Shane Enright; Jonathan Lyne, Peter Crowley, Killian Young; Anthony Maher, David Moran; Stephen O’Brien, Johnny Buckley, Donnchadh Walsh; Colm Cooper; Kieran Donaghy – capt., James O’Donoghue.

“It’ll be tight game and Tyrone will need every bounce of the ball”. He is tough, experienced and is an excellent reader of the game.

In truth, the team that won three All-Irelands in 2003, ’05 and ’08 exited in drabs and Harte has been through and discarded a huge volume of players – some of them, like the 2008 All-Ireland minor winning star, Kyle Coney, hugely promising ones – and just now, has he found a mix spicey enough to survive at this exalted stage of the footballing summer.

Yet, Harte does not possess the array of qualities Éamonn Fitzmaurice can call upon and therein should lie the difference at headquarters on Sunday.

“And I think it has been critical to this year’s success that the under-21s were successful at All-Ireland level”.