BRIAN Dooher has admitted that Tyrone are under pressure to hold on to their Division One status following a second defeat in three outings.
They go west for the second Time in six days to take on a resurgent Mayo side on Saturday night.
And the Red Hands, struggling for form since their 2021 All-Ireland triumph, will take no comfort from their impressive record at Castlebar.
Tyrone haven’t lost at MacHale Park since 1992, taking five wins and two draws from their five visits to the venue since then.
But they’ll need a sharp upturn in energy and productivity if they are to extend that sequence this weekend.
“Every match is critical, we’re on the back foot now,” joint-manager Brian Dooher said.
Defeat to Galway in Tuam last weekend left Tyrone sharing bottom spot on the League table with three other teams, while Mayo’s win over Kerry extended their unbeaten record.
“We have a big match next weekend, and we’ll have to get ourselves regrouped and get ready to go again,” said Dooher.
“It’s a big challenge for us. We saw Mayo against Kerry, and they had a real good energy about them.
“All we can do is get ourselves back, get ourselves dusted down, get a look at what went good, what went bad, and prepare ourselves for next Saturday night.”
After making a strong start to the second half against Galway, cutting the deficit to a single point while playing with the wind, the Ulster men were overrun by a rampant home side that swept into a commanding lead.
After falling just four points behind while playing into a strong wind, Tyrone staged a strong second half revival to narrow the gap to a single point, but Galway stepped up the tempo and regained control of the contest.
“It was disappointing the way the second half went,” said Dooher.
“We had worked hard to get back into it, we had opportunities to move on, and we just didn’t push on.”
The Red Hands were in a positive position at the halfway stage, just four points behind with weather conditions set to favour them after the break.
“It was a reasonable position,” said Dooher.
“We had unforced turnovers in the first half, which is something we can do without definitely, but the boys worked hard in the second half, we can’t fault them.
“They really put in a good shift and created the chances, we just didn’t take enough of them.”
After falling seven points behind, Tyrone had to chase a goal to salvage something from the game, but it never came, although they did fire over a late volley of scores to narrow the gap to three.
“We had a couple of balls in, but we were really chasing it at that stage,” said Dooher.
“The real harm was done midway through the half, when we had a chance to push on.
“There was a point in it and we had a chance to turn that game, and we just never got level.
“Fair play to Galway, they punched holes in us a few times, they got scores and probably had goal chances as well.
“They were very good in the second half, they really came on to us, they broke lines.”
