Inside Track: It’s all red and white for Tyrone-born trio

We wonder how Seán McClean, Gavin Devlin and Mickey Harte view the All-Ireland under-20 final. All three are Tyrone-born, two of them living in the O’Neill county. They might just be tugged this way and that.

Well, maybe not McClean. He’s as much a ‘nationalised’ Louthman as you can get. Of course he retains his mid-Ulster accident, and would have rejoiced when the Sam Maguire hit Aughnacloy on the road from Dublin for the first time in 2003, and three times after that.

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But he’s been in these parts for a number of years, living in Hunterstown and deserving of being called ‘one of us’.

He’s been a valuable asset to the local Rovers, filling the role of chairman and playing a part in the club today boasting facilities to match the best in the county.

Having first been elected vice-chairman, he took over the County Board’s No 1 spot in late 2023, and has since got the county grounds project back on an even keel as well as overseeing scarcely believable success on the football field.

We’ll make him, a banker, firmly in Louth’s corner tomorrow evening – and if the result goes the other way, he might not even derive the tiniest modicum of satisfaction.

Mickey Harte? Now this is a tricky one. The driving force behind the first three of Tyrone’s senior All-Ireland wins, and before that significant national success at under-age levels, his goodbye to Garvaghey a few years ago hadn’t the county’s centre of excellence dressed in bunting.

He wanted his tenure as senior team manager extended by just one year. The County Board, however, was having none of it. Unprecedented success may not have even been given a handshake, never mind recognition.

But he wasn’t out of football for long. The then Louth County Board chairman, Peter Fitzpatrick, came calling in 2020, and to the surprise of many, Harte accepted the invitation to take over the running of the Louth team. He brought with him his trusted sidekick, the already-mentioned Gavin Devlin.

Starting from the very bottom, this long-established duo brought their new students through Division Four of the league, and the following year plotted the same course in the slightly higher division.

After that, a place in the highly competitive Division Two was retained, along with qualifying for the Leinster Championship final.

If Harte and Devlin’s arrival was a surprise, their sudden departure at the tail-end of 2023 was a shock of 1,000s of volts. They were to take over at the Derry helm.

Three counties were feeling sore, including the one they were going to, Oak Leaf traditionalists unable to accept someone from across the county boundary coming in.

This county was feeling let down, while Tyrone whinged as well, why, it was difficult to understand since they wouldn’t extend Harte’s stay when he had asked for it.

The Tyrone duo’s stay in Derry was deemed a failure, even though they guided the Oak Leaf to National League success. There tenure was shorter than the one they had in Louth.

Harte’s next port of call was Offaly, while Devlin reacquainted with Louth, concentrating on underage and schools’ football.

More than that, he joined Jonny Clerkin’s county minor management, and has never been less than vocal along the sideline, issuing instructions in a championship run that has still some life left in it.

Harte may be a ‘maybe’ tomorrow night, but Devlin is definitely on his adopted county’s side? If, as they say, blood is thicker than water, the answer is an emphatic ‘no’. His son, Conan, lines out at midfield for the Red

Hands, and how he and his partner Conor O’Neill fare in the tussle with Seán Callaghan and James Maguire could have a major bearing on the result.

So, one for Louth, one for Tyrone, and let’s say, one with divided loyalties. But regardless of who the Tyrone-born trio shout for in Armagh tomorrow night, it has to be acknowledged all have been significant in Louth football being in a better place than it’s been for a long time.

Looking ahead to Louth seniors’ All-Ireland qualifier with Down on Saturday we see that there could be a sideline dilemma.

It’s only over a decade since James McCartan had charge of the Down team, leading them to an All-Ireland final. Now he’s one of Ger Brennan’s assistants.