Coach to All-Ireland minor winners, goalkeeper for senior test against Kerry

AN HOUR AFTER the All-Ireland minor final concluded in Newbridge last Sunday afternoon, the Tyrone players were still celebrating.

A group of them, with divilment in their eyes, pounced on manager Gerard Donnelly and lifted him up before passing him around over their heads, like a crowd surfer at a rock concert.

There were giddy laughs while the players’ parents, watching on, wondered if Donnelly might suddenly come crashing down to the ground. Were his pockets even zipped up?

You can’t buy memories like that.

The main stand was empty at that stage, save for a few stragglers and the Morgan family, Dad Niall helping four-year-old daughter Maisie put on her coat. The previous weekend, Dad and daughter had a kickaround on the Croke Park pitch after Tyrone’s All-Ireland senior quarter-final win over Dublin.

They’ll be back this Saturday for the semi-final against Kerry, though on a landmark Sunday in Newbridge, senior goalkeeper Morgan was more focused on the long-term health of Tyrone football.

He is a coach with the Red Hand minors, drafted in before the 2024 season by manager Donnelly to help out whenever he could.

Sometimes that was only once a week as he balanced work, family and inter-county senior life, though he’s done his best to be a regular presence.

“The minors trained at six o’clock some nights just so that I could get involved for 45 minutes or so before I stepped in with the seniors,” explained Morgan.

It’s a small minor management team with former Tyrone defender Ciaran Gourley, Morgan and coach/fitness expert Sean Murphy assisting Donnelly.

But they’ve made it work and Tyrone were the standout team in this year’s minor championship, winning all of their games by at least five points until they ran into Kerry last weekend at Cedral St Conleth’s Park.

With 46 minutes on the clock, and Kerry 1-13 to 0-13 ahead, the Munster champions pounced on a loose Tyrone kick-out to work a goal chance that ended with a ’45 being awarded. Kevin Griffin knocked it over and Kerry, four ahead, looked set for victory.

From there, Tyrone outscored Kerry by 1-4 to 0-2 to claim the county’s first title in 15 years. Tyrone’s U20s had already locked down back-to-back All-Ireland wins.

Suddenly the type of things being said about neighbours Derry’s gold standard underage structures – they won the 2020, 2023 and 2024 All-Ireland minor titles – are now being said about Tyrone’s.

“There’ll definitely be a lot of these boys that will come through to senior,” said Morgan, gesturing out towards the celebrating minors in Newbridge.

“We always say in Tyrone that if you can get three from every minor team that comes through, you’re doing well. I can see there being maybe seven or eight of these boys that will play senior for Tyrone some day.”

The Donnelly-managed minors, along with Paul Devlin’s U20s and Malachy O’Rourke’s senior team, trained alongside each other for several months at their state of the art training centre in Garvaghy. After sessions, they’d eat together, share laughs, coaching tips and tall tales.

“There’s one pitch up there that’s sort of fenced in and there were nights leading up to the All-Ireland U20 final when they were on the fenced pitch, which is sort of seen as the big pitch or the main pitch,” said Morgan. “Then the minors were on it other times, then the seniors. There was a great buzz up there between us all.”

Omagh CBS won the 2023 and 2024 All-Ireland senior Hogan Cup titles too, adding to the sense of a county positioning itself in a strong position for the coming years.

“I think a lot of it is to do with our club scene,” said Morgan when asked to put his finger on why things are booming again in Tyrone.

“At senior level it’s very competitive. The league games are important. I know in some other counties the club league is nearly over now but we’re only half way through and it’ll stop until after the Tyrone seniors are out.

“I think that feeds right down through all the levels, because everybody sees how competitive absolutely every game is. Every single game is important and that’s a mindset that has dripped down throughout all levels I feel.”

Morgan smiled when asked about his own minor days. Tyrone won the 2008 and 2010 All-Irelands. In between was Morgan’s year, 2009, and Tyrone lost their first game to Armagh – Robbie Tasker smashed a late goal from a penalty past Morgan to win it – and were knocked out. One and done.

Still, himself and Ronan McNamee got their All-Ireland medal together in the end, as seniors in 2021.

Perhaps the lesson from it all is that minor success, as was the case for the 2008 and 2010 Tyrone teams, isn’t a reliable indicator of future senior gains. And with that being the case, there is no sense in Morgan figuring that if it doesn’t happen for the Tyrone seniors this year, well, they’ve always got a talented bunch of minor and U-20 phenoms breaking through anyway.

Not that they’d ever freewheel for a game against Kerry.

“They’ll be massive favourites,” said Morgan of the Kingdom, eyeing the Munster senior champions’ second-half demolition job on All-Ireland holders Armagh.

“It’s a funny one, after we beat Donegal we were pushed in very close to that favourites tag ourselves. Then we got beaten by Mayo and we were pushed straight back out!

“Then we beat Dublin and now everybody is talking about how Dublin weren’t a great side, and Kerry beat Armagh so they’re back to being great! So it’s a funny one, it just depends on who you’re talking to about these things.

“But we’ll have belief, Tyrone teams always have belief. That doesn’t put the ball over the bar unfortunately so we’ll have to just make sure our skills are high and that we’re ready to go.”

Barring a heavy defeat and a giant underperformance, Tyrone will look back on a season of progress. At senior level, they have finally stopped the rot. Prior to 2025, they’d played 15 championship games since winning the All-Ireland in 2021 and won just six. So far this year they’ve won four of their six championship matches.

Morgan agreed that they’ve brought vital stability.

“Yeah, and look, I know we got relegated at the start of the year, and that was very disappointing, but we went down after getting seven points which would have kept you up nearly every other year,” said two two-time All-Star.

“Then obviously we got to an Ulster semi-final against Armagh. We put them to the pin of their collar and lost by a point, it was disappointing to be put out of Ulster that day.

“But I do think we have steadied the ship a wee bit. It’s all about this weekend now and if you don’t perform it’s back to the drawing board so we’ve just got to put in a big shift now against a big team.”

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