McKernan keen to adopt ‘underdog’ tag

DESPITE carrying the mantle of All-Ireland champions into every match this season, Tyrone defender Michael McKernan accepts that the squad react best when they are labelled ‘underdogs’.

The Sam Maguire crown has rested uneasily on the heads of the players this season, after a number of off-colour displays in both League and Championship in 2022.

Another insipid showing against Armagh in Round One of the Qualifiers this Sunday afternoon in the Athletic Grounds will likely signal the end of the Red Hands tenure as champions.

The knives have been out for Tyrone since they tamely relinquished their grip on the Ulster title to Derry last month but Michael McKernan maintains that psychologically such criticism could work in the visitors favour this weekend. And he stresses that the heroics of 2021 have now been very firmly placed on the backburner.

“ We were the ones doing the hunting last year, and maybe you could say they were the ones hunting us this year.

“ But we’re still looking at ourselves as the underdogs. I don’t feel any pressure of it really, it’s in the past and we’ve parked it. We just need to get our performances up again to what they were last year.”

The Coalisland defender confesses that after a few post-mortem get togethers up at Garvaghey following the Oak Leaf debacle in Omagh, the squad have knuckled down to business as they hone their preparations for the Orchard trip this Sunday.

“ We didn’t perform the way that we had wanted to, and there were a few things that went against us. Derry took full advantage of them. And fair play to them, they were well worth their win.

“ We had a few meetings after the Derry game and the boys have knuckled down and focused. We had to wait to see who we got obviously, and we have got Armagh now.

“ They have already beat us twice this year and they will be looking to go for a third. They’re the same as Derry, they’re well drilled and they’re very fit, and it’s just about us hopefully being able to up our performance and do ourselves a bit of justice.”

Armagh likewise will feel they didn’t do themsleves justice in the Ulster Championship, losing out to a distinctly average Donegal team by six points. McKernan is expecting a positive response from Kieran McGeeney’s men at the weekend.

“ As everyone knows, Ballybofey is a very hard place to go to, especially in Championship and even in the League.

“ So I don’t know whether you can look into that too much, and Donegal on the day were very good, and I would say that on the day, Armagh were maybe the same as us, they just didn’t perform that day.

“ So I’d say they have had four or five hard weeks of training, and they will be looking to put a performance in against us.”

McKernan discounts the notion that Tyrone might hold the edge in terms of experience over Armagh this weekend given how accustomed they are to prevailing in do-or-die backdoor matches over the years.

“ I don’t think we do at all (have an edge). Armagh obviously will be up for it, they have home advantage, and they have beaten us well in the two games we played them this year. So I don’t think we have any edge at all on them.”

While McKernan was one of the few Tyrone players to emerge with any credit from the Derry encounter, he dismisses any praise as of mere scant consolation on what was a bleak day overall.

“ If we had won and I had been poor, I wouldn’t have cared. Everyone’s performance was probably under par from what we expect from ourselves, and from each other.

“ So we’ll all be looking to raise our game, and hopefully we can do that after a few hard weeks training.

“ Some will have been better than others, but it’s a team sport, and as a team we need to be better, and it’s all about getting that togetherness and getting the team performing well, rather than individually.

“ We set ourselves standards and didn’t live up to them, and fair play to Derry, they were well drilled, very fit and they knew exactly what they were doing.”

The Fianna star agrees that it is hard to pinpoint why Tyrone’s Ulster dreams were dashed in such dramatic fashion last time out, but he adds that mentally they mightn’t have been geared up for the scale of the challenge Derry were to mount

“ Maybe there was that wee bit of complacency with us, and we knew we have to be a lot better if we want to go anywhere this year.

“ Whether it was complacency or we just weren’t focused, I don’t know. I think we knew the challenge that Derry were going to bring, and it was just on the day that we didn’t perform.”

McKernan was one of four Tyrone players who were red-carded the last time that Tyrone visited the Athletic Grounds in the League earlier this season, and he is expecting to be facing further racuous home support on Sunday.

“We even saw in the League that there was a full house, and you can see what their supporters bring to it.

“ They have done well in the League and their supporters seem to be getting behind them again. There seems to be a good buzz about Armagh, they’re rising up and their supporters are a massive boost to them.”