Tyrone manager Malachy O'Rourke has the Midas touch wherever he goes
Tyrone lost their way badly after a surprise All-Ireland win in 2021. But Malachy O'Rourke has a track record of making a big impact in his first year in charge of teams at all levels. Tyrone will be worth watching in 2025.
Anyone walking the corridor outside that hotel room must have been stopped in their tracks.
It was the summer of 2008 - one that should have been the best in Fermanagh's football history.
They came agonisingly close to winning a first ever Ulster title, losing to Armagh in a replay after dominating the drawn game.
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Malachy O'Rourke was the Fermanagh manager then, and he knew this was still a time to savour. After all, he'd played for the county in the bleakest of times.
During O'Rourke's playing career, you could count the number of games Fermanagh won in the Ulster Championship on one hand - and still have a couple of fingers to spare.
But he has the winning touch as a manager, and he took on his native county after making a stunning mark at club level - winning county titles in Tyrone and Cavan and taking unfashionable Derry side Loup to an Ulster club title.
Fermanagh started 2008 in Division Three and a raw-boned Monaghan side were regarded as hot favourites to take their scalp in the Ulster quarter-final.
Instead, Fermanagh came through by four points.
Next up were Derry, then ranked favourites to win Ulster and third behind Dublin and Kerry in the odds list for the All-Ireland.
As they planned and plotted, O'Rourke gathered his men around him in an hotel room.
He figured they needed steel in every fibre if they were to take down Derry, so he told them the story of the Zulu warriors, and their influence on South Africa's win over the All Blacks in the 1995 Rugby World Cup final.
It was captain Francis Pienaar's idea. He'd roar at his plaeyrs ''Niya besaba na?'' - Are you afraid of them? They'd bellow in reply - ''Hayi! Asiba Sabi!'' - No! We are not afraid!.
It didn't finish there. The chant would begin, growing louder and louder - ''Siya bafuna! Siya bafuna'' We want them! We want them!
Sounds a bit different in a Fermanagh accent, but it did the job. A Barry Owens goal saw Fermanagh come through by two points to contest a first Ulster final in 26 years.
O'Rourke's team had all the ingredients needed to lift the Anglo-Celt Cup bar one - a reliable free-taker.
He had that in Monaghan with Ciaran McManus. On O'Rourke's watch, they had one of the best spells in their history.
There was a return to club management with Glen, where an All-Ireland club title was brought back by the Derry side.
Now O'Rourke is in charge of Tyrone, the county where he settled many years ago with his family.
A county team that lost their way badly after a surprise All-Ireland win in 2021. But O'Rourke has a track record of making a big impact in his first year in charge of teams at all levels. Tyrone will be worth watching in 2025.
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