Cathal McShane says he had no issues with Mickey Harte’s approach despite stinging criticism of their former manager from Darren McCurry.
Earlier this week, McCurry claimed that he wouldn’t have played for Tyrone in 2021 had Harte remained at the helm for another season, saying he had lost his confidence under his management.
He also questioned Harte’s approach to forward play in contrast to that of Jim Gavin, who McCurry said created “an environment for the forwards to play well in”.
Read more: Darren McCurry: I would have quit if Mickey Harte had stayed in charge of Tyrone
Harte moving on clearly didn’t do the Edendork man any harm as he won an All Star while Tyrone regained Ulster and All-Ireland titles last year but McShane pointed to how his own game flourished under the now Louth manager in 2019, when he collected an All Star himself.
He said: “Every set-up and every manager, they all bring different ideas and different things that they're trying to achieve and different ways of playing.
“No doubt last year we were keeping more men up the field and stuff like that. But you can also look at 2019 as well, I would say it was probably one of my best seasons inside as a full-forward. I can think of many positive games that year.
“Here, listen, I was happy under Mickey and thought we had a good system in place.
“I was very impressed with what we done, both training-wise and on the field to try to get to that high level and ultimately we did reach the All-Ireland, getting to go up the steps and lift Sam."
“Every manager comes in and has their ideas, Mickey would have had his ideas and now the new management have their ideas so we just have to try our best to adapt to that and try to get the best for Tyrone.”
McCurry was also critical of six players, Lee Brennan, Tiernan McCann, Mark Bradley, Ronan O’Neill, Hugh Pat McGeary and Michael Cassidy, all of whom have withdrawn from the Tyrone panel in recent months, saying “maybe they were thinking a wee bit more about themselves than the Tyrone team and the people of Tyrone”.
McShane said he hadn’t read his teammates comments but accepted that the panel has been weakened by their departure, albeit none of them were regular starters.
“Even now our squad is very, very competitive. We have serious talent which takes to the field in Garvaghey for training and for matches at the weekend.
“You do look at the talent that stepped away and there was a wealth of experience and a wealth of high skilled players there.
“Obviously people have lots of things going on in their private life, maybe things coming up that they had to focus on or whatever. No doubt if they had stayed it would have made our squad even stronger for the next year and would have put us in a great position.
“You could have asked would those guys have maybe challenged to try to get into the starting set-up more often this year and stuff. And if you're having that within any team, you're going to be in a good position.
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