Writing for RTÉ Sport in 2018, three-time Tyrone All-Ireland winner Philip Jordan dedicated an entire column to the brilliance of his former coach Paddy Tally and the influence he had on his career.
The Galbally native, who himself came close to a Celtic Cross as a Tyrone squad member in their 1995 final defeat to Dublin, has been in the coaching game for over two decades now and he casts a long shadow over Sunday's All-Ireland final between Kerry and Galway.
After stepping away from the Down job last year as he felt his request for a one-year extension didn’t garner enough support, Tally was snapped up by incoming Kingdom manager Jack O’Connor.
As a coach, Tally had been key in championship wins over Kerry with Tyrone [2003 All-Ireland semi-final], Down [2010 quarter-final] and Galway [2018 Super Eights]. Better to have that expertise on the inside rather than outside throwing rocks.
His fingerprints will be all over the Kerry system at Croke Park and, to heighten his involvement, when Jordan penned those fine words about Tally five years ago, he was speaking about a man who was working in the Galway camp under Kevin Walsh.
It's an incredible asset to have, someone with so much insight across both dressing rooms. Galway, by reply, could point to current coach Cian O'Neill who worked previously in Kerry under Éamonn Fitzmaurice.
It would be easy to think that Tally’s coaching career has been plain sailing.
Sunday presents a chance of winning a second All-Ireland title having been part of Tyrone’s breakthrough 2003 success under Mickey Harte having joined the set-up as a 29-year-old.
Tally was also part of James McCartan’s management team for Down’s unlikely run to the All-Ireland final in 2010 where they were pipped by Cork.
There was also a shock 2017 Sigerson Cup success with teaching college St Mary’s, Belfast where he was manager rather than coach.
Star-studded UCD had been favourites to win the final, but St Mary’s showed heart and desire to claim only their second-ever title, following in the footsteps of Jarlath Burns, Benny Tierney, Malachy O’Rourke, Seamus Downey and co who had prevailed in 1989.
In the five years since that success, players from Tally’s 'Ranch’ team have gone on to great things.
Kevin McKernan was a firmly established Down player by then, but the likes of Kieran McGeary, the 2021 Player of the Year, Cathal McShane, Conor Meyler [all Tyrone], Oisin O’Neill, Aaron McKay [both Armagh] and Ciaran Corrigan [Fermanagh dual player] have progressed to become key players for their respective counties.
Midfield for the defeated team that day was a certain Jack Barry of Kerry. The UCC team that St Mary’s vanquished in the semi-final contained Jason Foley, Tom O’Sullivan, Adrian Spillane and Killian Spillane who also featured in Kerry’s All-Ireland semi-final win over Dublin two weeks ago.
That win over the Cork institution was particularly impressive as St Mary’s conceded two goals in an incredible 10 seconds in what were the first two scores of the game.
Down goalkeeper Marc Reid wasn’t convincing for the first one as a ball bounced dangerously around his square and was scrambled home, and perhaps compensating for his error, he got his restart away in a scarcely believable five seconds. Unfortunately for him, it went straight to a red jersey and was passed inside for another major and St Mary’s were staring into a six-point deficit.
Despite victory, Reid understandably cut a disconsolate figure that evening in the team hotel but his mood surely would have improved the next morning walking into the meeting ahead of the final as Tally and player Ruairi Mooney were on a pair of guitars belting out a few tunes.
There have been plenty of good times, but that idea of plain sailing has been disrupted by some choppy waters along the way.
For one, the breakdown of the relationship between Tally and Harte saw him exit the Tyrone camp at the end of 2004 with arguments and counter-arguments about whether he walked or was pushed.
Any chance of the fall-out remaining private evaporated when Harte addressed it in his autobiography.
"I discovered he was talking to influential players outside of training sessions about certain team selections," wrote Harte. "Paddy’s role never prescribed any involvement in picking the team."
The weekend the book was released, Tally was phoned by a national newspaper for his reaction to the critical words. Annoyed that the sensitive topic was to gain even more coverage, he politely declined. Even in the low times in his career, Tally has always been courteous to the press and has always faced the media music after defeats.
His first foray into inter-county management also would have left a sour taste.
Tally’s decision to leave the Galway camp was the result of being offered the Down manager’s job after the departure of the late Eamonn Burns, who would tragically pass away at just 56 just over a year after ending his time with the Mourne County.
Sean O'Shea steps up with the final kick of the game to win the match for Kerry and break Dublin hearts.
— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) July 10, 2022
They reach the All-Ireland final to play Galway.
Highlights on #sundaygame from 10.10pm pic.twitter.com/WRq72iNlAz
Tally’s three seasons in charge were littered with frustration, Covid training restrictions disrupted his best laid plans while an Ulster semi-final defeat to Cavan in 2020, having led 1-09 to 0-02 at one stage, was a tough day on the sideline.
Tally also served an eight-week ban on a ‘discrediting the association’ charge after the PSNI attended a gathering of Down players in Newry during the pandemic. The police found that no Covid restrictions had been broken, but the GAA felt that their return to training guidelines had been breached.
It grated Tally – and still annoys a number of Down players – that they were dragged through a media storm when it was well-known that numerous counties were doing likewise.
Still, a one-year extension was put in for and although the Down Executive signed off on it, Tally felt that the clubs’ approval vote was too tight to allow him to continue.
Joe Brolly, writing in the Gaelic Life, has also been a vocal critic. On the decision of Jack O’Connor to seek Tally out, he said "Kerry have sold their great traditions of attacking, adventurous football. They have swapped glory for Paddy Tally." In the same article he said that while with Derry, Tally chiselled away their "adventurous traditions" and turned them into a "safety first, defensive obsessed team".
Armagh player Aaron McKay can’t help but laugh at the suggestion that Tally is solely a defensive coach. He was one of his on-field generals in St Mary’s run to the 2017 Sigerson Cup, always man-marking the opposition's key forward, and he was often left in a one-on-one battle in the full-back line.
"People obviously assume that Paddy’s a kind of defensive manager, I don’t know but maybe it’s because he’s from Tyrone and from Ulster. He would be very much about your forwards being your first line of defence but most teams would do that anyway," he told RTÉ Sport.
"He’d be eating the head off you if you were back there in no man’s land doing nothing. He’d have a designated sweeper. For us it was Kevin McKernan and if anyone else was back there doing it he’d openly in front of everyone tell them to get the f**k out of there.
"It’s organised chaos, he wants everyone really working hard."
McKay and McKernan were Tally’s two enforcers at the back, so it was a shock to the manager when the former said that illness was going to keep him out of the 2017 Sigerson Cup quarter-final with DCU.
Tally’s response was not a sympathetic one. McKay was told to make sure he was on the bus as it departed the Carrickdale Hotel and he was handed his own wee isolation zone with no players anywhere near his seat.
As the rest of the team underwent a foam-rolling drill pre-game, Tally took McKay into the bar next door and got him to down a hot whiskey. A placebo perhaps, but McKay played all 60 minutes and another 20 of extra-time too.
And Tally will be demanding every morsel of energy from the Kerry players on Sunday as they chase a first All-Ireland title since 2014.
He was a very interesting addition to the Kerry ticket last October.
The semi-final victory over Dublin would have been examined and picked apart over the last fortnight. The Kingdom were in cruise control, defending well, forcing turnovers and breaking at speed – all Tally coaching traits, but their fallibility was again evident late on when they allowed Dublin to come from nowhere to draw level before Sean O’Shea's magical game-winning free.
Small margins can make big differences. In his RTÉ coaching column after Tyrone’s All-Ireland semi-final extra-time win over Peter Keane’s Kerry in 2021, Aidan O’Rourke demolished the Munster side for an apparent lack of awareness for what lay in wait.
"It is incredible then that Kerry seemed entirely unprepared for the storm that was coming," he wrote.
"The Kingdom seemed shocked at how little time they had on the ball and showed no understanding of having to play around the Tyrone tacklers without taking contact. They also showed little desire to make the 100-yard tracking runs that were needed to take Tyrone’s main source of scores away.
"It is impossible to create championship intensity in training against the bottom half of any panel but if Kerry played any practice games without double sweepers to get in the way or if the first team played against any less than 18 men then they had no concept of how to get ready."
Kerry lost the 2021 semi-final by a point and won this year’s by the same margin. "Them’s the breaks," as outgoing British Prime Minister Boris Johnson might say.
The ball broke Kerry’s way this time and it’s Galway now who stand between them and the clean sweep of Division 1, Munster and Sam Maguire.
Tally will undoubtedly know what needs to be done to get ready for the biggest game of all.
A players’ coach, but a man who sets high standards. A man who has earned the trust of the likes of Jack O’Connor, Kevin Walsh, James McCartan – enough for them to let him shape their style of play.
Paddy Tally won’t be kicking any scores at Croke Park this Sunday, indeed the RTÉ cameras are likely to only pick him up fleetingly as he discusses matters with other coaches. But as a key member of the Kerry dressing room, and someone who spent time in the Galway one too, he’s set to have a big say on the 2022 decider.
Follow the All-Ireland Football Championship final on Sunday, Galway v Kerry, from 2pm via our live blogs on rte.ie/sport or on the RTÉ News app. Watch live coverage on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player with live radio commentary on RTÉ Radio 1 and Spórt an Lae on RTÉ Raidió na Gaeltachta
