Michael Hannon is a former Cavan corner back who made a name for himself as a great man-marker during his inter-county career. This past week, in his column in the Anglo Celt, he paid tribute to the 'best player' he ever tried to mark – Tyrone's Stephen O'Neill.
Hannon had been tasked with trying to keep O'Neill quiet during the second half of Cavan's Ulster Championship clash with Tyrone in 2005. The Drumgoon native describes in detail how no player he had ever come up against worked harder off the ball than O'Neill; making 'six or seven runs just to receive one pass.' However it was the unorthodox fashion of his movement that most stumped Hannon.
He writes 'He didn’t seem to be interested in the ball like a full-forward is. He was moving in directions and at angles that suggested his focus was somewhere else.' Years later a member of the Tyrone team would explain to a perplexed Hannon that O'Neill was 'playing on a string.' This is a basketball term, which in short describes the tactic of two teammates keeping the same distance from each other at all times.
How did it apply to Tyrone and O'Neill? Hannon explains:
Typically one player moves and the other follows so that they maintain a certain distance between each other. Who was on the other end of O’Neills string then? None other than Brian McGuigan, who was operating at centre forward for Mickey Harte’s side.
Wherever he went, O’Neill maintained 35 metres between himself and Tyrone’s number 11.
This meant that McGuigan knew O'Neill was an outlet every time he got the ball and would be able to release quick ball to him, almost intuitively knowing his exact whereabouts on the pitch. A tactic that must have been extremely tough to implement but left defenders like Hannon completely bamboozled when it worked.
Of course, this little trick is not the sole reason O'Neill was such a brilliant player. Hannon also discusses his work ethic off the field in greater detail elsewhere in his column, which you can read here.
