Dublin fans could outnumber their Omagh hosts on Saturday
Saturday’s expected sell-out crowd in Healy Park, when Tyrone host Dublin in phase two of the Super 8 series, could see the travelling support outnumber their opposition, according to sources in Tyrone.
For this fixture, with the relevant healthy and safety precautions followed through, Healy Park has a capacity of 17,636, with 4,500 seats, 16 wheelchair places, and 13,120 standing terrace spaces.
Dublin are one of the rare counties that are fully subscribed with 2,500 season tickets, although they also have something in the region of 1,000 Parnell Park season ticket holders who may also have to be catered for.
The overall ticket allocation among the Dublin clubs is set around 4,000, with the Parnell Park ticket holders included.
However, Dublin fans can still snap up tickets on general sale, with tickets available yesterday online and through Centra and SuperValu outlets.
Tyrone have just over 1,200 season ticket holders, but attendances have not been what they once were in Omagh, with Monaghan ticket holders outnumbering Red Hand fans for their Ulster quarter-final in May. All season ticket holders, however, will be placed in the terraces for this game.
While many are looking forward to seeing how Dublin cope on their one game out of Leinster in this season, and their only game out of Croke Park for the Super 8s series, Tyrone manager Mickey Harte has played down the effect of playing the game in Omagh.
“Is Omagh any big fortress for us?” he asked.
There is no real history to suggest that it is but I suppose we’ve never played a championship game of this importance there before, so we will see what we can do with that. But I won’t be depending on the ground to win this game for us, we’d be depending on many other things.
In Harte’s time as senior manager, Tyrone have played 11 championship games in Healy Park, winning seven, drawing two (both against Down in 2008 and 2014), and losing the other two (Armagh in 2014, Derry in 2006).
Harte spoke of the unique challenge of having Dublin playing a championship game outside of their own province, which has only happened on five other occasions.
“It’s something we never dreamt would ever happen but it’s a very novel idea, the All-Ireland champions Dublin to come and play a championship match in Omagh in the month of July and we’re lucky to have that opportunity,” said Harte.
Obviously we should be motivated. When you’re playing the All-Ireland champions you need to be motivated — if you’re not motivated playing against the All-Ireland champions then you’re very difficult to motivate and you’d wonder if you could be motivated at all.
“We can’t make that the rock upon which we build a performance because that doesn’t make sense. We have to actually be better at all of the things we do well.
“We need to add value to that and know that even doing that doesn’t guarantee you a result but it should guarantee us to be more competitive than last year, and that’s the first challenge — be more competitive than we were.”
The weekend victory over Roscommon was bittersweet for Tyrone forward Cathal McShane, who learned of his grandmother’s death minutes after the final whistle. Bridget McShane, 91, is believed to have died five minutes before Saturday’s throw-in.
