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27th September 2023
02:30pm BST

"It's something that I never would have envisaged happening, but on the flip side of that I would say that Mickey wants the best in anything that he does", McGuigan told SportsJOE. "The best you can do at inter-county level is win the Sam Maguire, and he was never going to do that with Louth so once the opportunity came for him to compete at the top level at inter-county again, he would have took that job on."Now I would have been thinking maybe a Donegal, or a Dublin, or somebody along those lines, I never would have thought Derry - but knowing Mickey well over these past 20 years, and I know he's a Tyrone man, so he might not have much love for Derry, but he would take great pleasure in winning an All-Ireland, even if it was with Derry.
"He has promised himself that he will win an All-Ireland, and it probably did hurt him that he did a lot of groundwork in the 2021 win, because the year he left they went on to win it."In his head he would be saying to himself 'I would have won that too', so that has bound to be hurting him, and it's probably what is driving him on with the Derry job." Derry legend Joe Brolly is among those who claim that Harte is only in this for greed and money, as he wrote in his weekly column that this appointment was the worst thing to happen since "the plantation." However, the Ardboe native played under the new Oakleaf boss for two decades between underage and football, and doesn't believe that's what is motivating him.
"He's just a pure competitor. I honestly believe that if a Donegal, Mayo, or if Dessie Farrell walked away from Dublin and they came knocking on his door, he would have took it."He wants to be sitting at the top table. The fact is that maybe Derry is the last opportunity he will ever have, and it would pain me to see him win an All-Ireland with them, but he will be doing his best to do so. "All of the outside noises that you hear from Joe Brolly won't faze him one bit. He's has plenty of unfair criticism in his county in Tyrone and he never let it affect him once, so I don't think a Joe Brolly or someone is going to affect him too much." Related links:
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