THE last two seasons haven’t been good enough, admits Tyrone joint-manager Brian Dooher who hopes to see his side “hit the ground running” this season.
It will be the fourth for Dooher and Feargal Logan who began with a brilliant All-Ireland success in 2021 but have since seen their team fall in round one of the Qualifiers (2022) and in the quarter-finals last year, after an 11-point mauling from Kerry.
Dooher and Logan have brought in Loughmacrory’s Aodhan Donaghy, Tarlach Quinn (Moortown), Cormac Donnelly (Galbally), Lorcan McGarrity (Carrickmore) and Coalisland’s Tiernan Quinn. It is understood that Eoin McElholm (Loughmacrory) and Michael Rafferty (Killyclogher) have opted to concentrate on the U20s.
“We watched club football from the latter stages of the league and in the championship so we’ve a few new boys in training and they’re doing well, they’re acquitting themselves well and working really hard,” said Dooher.
“We want to get a look at them in the McKenna Cup.”
Between the 2021 and 2022 seasons there were a host of retirements from the Tyrone panel but the only absentee from last year, albeit a significant one, is experienced defender Ronan McNamee.
“He’ll be a big loss,” said Dooher.
“Ronan is a great person as well as a great footballer. He has added a lot to Tyrone football over the years and he was one of those boys who didn’t have a bad game for Tyrone. You can’t say: ‘That was Ronan McNamee’s bad day’ because he didn’t have one. He just did what he needed to do every time he went out and really acquitted himself well over his career.
“That is testament to the character he is. I want to congratulate him on everything he has done and wish him a good retirement and a few good years of club football now.”
Tyrone were grouped with neighbours Armagh and Donegal in the Dr McKenna Cup and begin their Division One programme by hosting Roscommon at Healy Park. Last year wins in the final two rounds lifted Tyrone out of relegation trouble but their inconsistent form continued in the Championship and Dooher wants to see significant improvement.
“The last two years weren’t good enough,” he said.
“We (the management) could have gone at the end of either of the last two seasons the way we were going but you evaluate every year on its own merits and I like to think we can go back and acquit ourselves a bit better.
“We just didn’t perform to our potential for a number of reasons and we need to look at them and evaluate what we could do better and put some of those things in place this year.
“That’s the challenge we have and every other team is going out with the same challenge and I suppose that’s the beauty of it. In my opinion, everything is fixable, there’s always room for improvement everywhere.
“Any day you go out and get beat you haven’t done everything wrong and every day you go out and get beat you haven’t done everything right. It’s the balance in between and sometimes in tips more one way than the other.
“There were a lot of good things last year and we want to build on them and remedy some of the weaknesses.
“The way the season is now – it’s so compressed that there is no real forgiveness in it anymore. There is no time to recover so you need to hit the ground and you have to keep moving.”
