Former Tyrone attacker Kyle Coney has urged Mattie Donnelly and Peter Harte to commit to another season in the county colours.
The veterans, both 33, still have plenty to offer, according to their former team-mate.
He believes the pair have important roles to play in leading the Red Hands out of the malaise that has dogged them for the past three seasons.
Donnelly, who returned from a serious knee injury, was one of Tyrone’s best players this year, while Harte’s championship appearances were limited due to injury.
“Looking at this year’s season, Mattie Donnelly and Niall Morgan, two of the more elder statesmen, have been up there along with Darragh Canavan and a few others as our best players,” said Coney.
“If we can keep those bodies fresh over the winter and hang on to those two players, along with Peter Harte, and a few other ones.
“We can’t afford to let those boys walk away just yet, so it will be interesting to see what happens over the coming months in the club season.
“I don’t see it as a time for players to be walking away, I would say it’s a time to rejuvenate those fellows maybe for one last push, because they have been our best performers over the course of the year.
“Mattie Donnelly’s performances this year, coming back from a serious injury, have been outstanding, Niall Morgan to me is Tyrone’s most influential player, and is in his thirties also.
“It wouldn’t be the two players that I would be worried about. It would be different if they were getting stung every week, but their performances have been brilliant.”
Coney, who has taken his first steps into management with Junior club Derrytresk, accepts that the years are moving on for Donnelly and Harte, with whom he won an All-Ireland MFC medal in 2008.
“Now with the season being split, it feels like a never-ending cycle of gaelic football for those boys that are playing at county level.
“Time waits for no-one, and the years certainly add up.”
The Ardboe man is concerned at Tyrone’s lack of purpose during the current campaign, during which he felt that no defined tactical approach was discernible.
“Our loss ratio, I think has been above 50 per cent, so it’s not ideal, from a Tyrone point of view.
“We delivered an All-Ireland in 2021, there’s still a massive core group of players.
“For me, I would like to see a bit more direction in how we’re playing.
“Some weeks we’re dropping off, some weeks we’re pushing up, so just a clear indication of how we’re going to go about our business.
“To me, as a Tyrone supporter, and I have been a Tyrone player, there’s still players there to be doing a whole lot better than we have been doing this last couple of years.”
Tyrone’s struggle for form since the high of the 2021 All-Ireland triumph is one of the GAA’s puzzling issues, and a shock exit at the hands of Roscommon last month has heaped further pressure on players and management.
“We came out in 2022 after the win the previous year, and nobody from Tyrone will have a bother in saying that it was a really poor effort to retain our title, going out in the first round of the Ulster Championship as well.
“We’ll not be winning the All-Ireland every year, but to be competing in semi-finals and quarter-finals is where we should be at.
“As a Tyrone fan, the last number of years have been disappointing. It’s been a disappointing few years from the All-Ireland success in 2021.”