McKinless’ first answer prompted a chorus of laughs but the awkwardness was palpable. Associated with the one quarter of Ballinderry that is Derry on the border with Tyrone, McKinless needs no history lesson on the counties’ rivalry. In their McKenna Cup round game this past January, he and Tyrone co-manager Brian Dooher squared up to each other.

It appears McKinless has yet to speak to Harte. That may come about this weekend when from Friday teams are officially permitted to return to collective training. And clearly Harte has some convincing to do.

Unlike Brian Clough, he never slurred Derry before taking them over but he and his very own Peter Taylor, Gareth Devlin, really need to hit the ground running if they are to get the players on side.

He and his Tyrone sides have caused them pain be it in their formative years or players – there remain several of the them who their 2019 Ulster quarter-final. “Half their team is probably from Slaughtneil, who play well together, and are a formidable outfit,” said Harte before that game. Hardly libellous but the club’s starting representation was six.

To be fair to McKinless, he was only articulating the general tentativeness in the dressing room about Harte’s appointment. "He is a winning manager so I was happy enough with it and moved on,” said McKinless’ fellow All-Star Brendan Rogers without much enthusiasm. “I know Gavin Devlin personally from him taking the Slaughtneil footballers. After seeing the appointment initially, I knew what we were getting so I wasn’t worried about any ‘what-ifs’ or anything. You know what your stall is going to be.”

The concern some former players have about Derry’s style under Harte seems laboured, however. “People are shocked and a little bit worried about the style of play that might be coming our way,” Fergal McCusker said in September. “We were used to a very negative style under Rory Gallagher but it definitely did go a step further this year and Ciarán Meenagh brought it on again when they got to Croke Park.”

It was in 2015 that Derry scored four points in losing by four to Dublin in a torrid Division 1 Round 6 game. With just one point earned, they had to try something drastic but were relegated. By April ’18, they were consigned to Division 4 only naivety cost them over and over again.

A problem that had been long-standing, as Chrissy McKaigue outlined in 2018. “Derry's biggest problem the last few years hasn't been that the football's too defensive, it's been too open. The number of shootouts, the last couple of years some of the games I've been involved in – unbelievable games, they'd almost be shown in the highlights reel on TG4 over Christmas. But we keep on getting on the wrong side of them.”

Backboned by a sense of discipline and duty, Derry are where they are today. Harte’s football philosophy, as much as some beg to differ, complements that even if his background does not.

Some in both Derry and Tyrone may never get over the latter, though. On his podcast last month, Joe Brolly overstepped the mark in his animus with Harte by directly insulting him. For someone who took issue with Derry appointing an outside manager, it was Brolly who claimed to have approached the late Dublin great Brian Mullins about becoming Derry boss.

Eight years ago, on the back of that dire league defeat to Dublin, Brolly told 2FM he doesn’t “miss a Derry match but I refuse to go anymore. I just think it's an affront.” Three months later and he was sitting as a punter at the county’s Ulster quarter-final against Down in Celtic Park. His latest threat to boycott Derry games because of Harte’s appointment will be treated just as seriously.

Going into his 20th year and 21st season as a senior inter-county manager, Harte can block out all such noise. What he can’t do is assume everything will work itself outside within the walls of the Derry dressing room. McKinless’ few words established that.

Bridges don’t have to be mended; they have to be built. When he speaks to the Derry players about the Ulster medals they’ve won the last two seasons, he won’t be telling them they can throw them in the bin.

Harte’s already been damned but he’s not yet doomed.

A super Sunday for Jack O'Connor 

Neither is it contemptible nor outrageous to suggest Jack O’Connor and John Kiely were happy men on Sunday for a variety of reasons.

O’Connor watched in Tralee on as his sons Éanna and Cian claimed another county title, adding a Kerry intermediate crown to the three Kildare senior championships they won with Moorefield.

Milltown-Castlemaine’s victory also meant save for the Dr O’Donoghue (East Kerry) Cup (Fossa face Legion in a quarter-final), the Clifford brothers can relax for the rest of the year.

O’Connor will hardly be upset by that given the hefty volume of games they have played these past two seasons. Right now, David Clifford’s current 2022-23 total stands at 57 (32 in ’22, 25 in ’23) and Paudie’s is 56 (30 in ’22, 26 this year).

When succeeding in the league has played a fundamental part in all four of his All-Ireland senior victories as a Kerry manager, having them full on board when Paudie is likely to be nominated by East Kerry as the county’s captain will be most welcome by O’Connor.

As for Kiely, he will have wanted the best for his Na Piarsaigh and Dromin-Athlacca men last weekend but to have the full attention of the Casey brothers, William O’Donoghue, Conor Boylan, and David Reidy from the get-go will be a boost.

As collective training officially begins on Friday and with their team holidays out of the way, both Kiely and O’Connor will be able to park 2023 while giving some of their more taxed players some down-time.

Four months on from their contrasting final experiences, they would like to think this year is well and truly over. And with some added weight set to be added to finishing places in the Allianz Hurling League,

Limerick will likely approach it as positively as they did this past season.

Not that the two managers would dare say things could have hardly worked out better but certainly Sunday’s events were conducive to their preparations for the imminent season.

Will Cork v Limerick be on GAAGO in 2024?

A request from the Cork County Board for their senior hurling championship game against Limerick to be played as early as possible in the second week of May next year may end up pushing the fixture onto GAAGO.
The Round 3 game is slated for Páirc Uí Chaoimh on the evening of May 11 after the Munster Council acceded to Cork’s plea so that they can get the stadium ready for Bruce Springsteen’s concert there on May 16.
Going by this past season, provincial hurling games scheduled for Saturdays have been shown on the subscription streaming platform, the Limerick-Clare Round 1 and Cork-Tipperary Round 3 fixtures being two examples.
As the Irish Examiner first highlighted in early September, Cork’s footballers will play their home Sam Maguire/Tailteann Cup round game in Páirc Uí Rinn due to the work required on the pitch around the time of the concert.
But if the most popular pairing in the Munster SHC (40,847 took in the game in Limerick this year) is put on a pay-per-view service there could be uproar especially when it marks both Cork and Limerick’s penultimate match in the round-robin stage.

No decision as yet has been made about how many games RTÉ will show that weekend but on May 12 the Leinster and Ulster SFC finals are due to take place and they will both be shown live by the national broadcaster.