TYRONE legend Brian McGuigan believes that lockdown may open the door for someone to take Dublin’s crown – but feels that his own county would be better placed in 2021 than this year.
With uncertainty over whether there will be a championship played in 2020, the age profile of the five-in-a-row champions will once more fall under the spotlight.
Bernard Brogan and Eoghan O’Gara both retired at the end of last season. By the end of this year, Stephen Cluxton will be 38, Michael Darragh Macauley 34, Kevin McManamon 33.
Cian O’Sullivan, Philly McMahon and Michael Fitzsimons will all be 32, and all decided to stay put.
James McCarthy and Jonny Cooper will both turn 30 this year.
They’ve had no chance to build momentum under new boss Dessie Farrell and McGuigan hopes the lack of football will highlight a chink in their armour.
“I think we were all shocked and surprised by Jim Gavin standing down, but it was perfect timing,” says the Ardboe man, who is still aiming to play for the club this year at 40.
“They probably needed a new challenge. Those older players would have had a new challenge in trying to prove themselves to a totally new manager in Dessie Farrell.
“It mightn’t help them if they have to wait another year. I know myself, even when you’re playing in a successful, when you move into your 30s it’s not easy.
“We would’ve had the nucleus of our [Tyrone noughties] team all moving into their 30s at the one time, like this Dublin team.
“Once you go over 30, you think you’re good enough, that the mind and the body are moving the same way they did five or six years ago, but it’s not until you come to a crunch match like we did, against Dublin a few times and down in Killarney in 2012, it wasn’t there.
“The hunger wasn’t there, the legs and the mind weren’t moving as quickly as they would have been. Those players will be a year older, and they’re leaders.
“A good few of them seem to be in the defence and if you take a chunk of them out, it’s not easy replacing them. They talk about the conveyor belt, but I don’t know if the same players are coming behind them.
“It’s not as if they’re winning everything at minor and U21 at the minute. That level of player doesn’t come around that often, and they’ve been blessed with some exceptional players this last 10 years. They won’t be easy replaced.”
Tyrone have been in the group of challengers alongside Mayo and Kerry, but with their own leading lights at the very centre of their peak and with Kerry having a raft of All-Ireland minor winning teams pushing up from behind, McGuigan admits that time could be starting to run short for the Red Hands.
He does, however, feel that with Cathal McShane’s long-term injury and the fact that Mattie Donnelly is only just recovered from a career-threatening hamstring tear, that it’s been as good a time as any for them to break.
“The key players that Tyrone have at the minute, their leaders from the minor team in 2008, are coming up around the 30-mark.
“Tyrone, if they are going to wipe the year out, will have Mattie and Cathal fully fit again and hungry. I dunno what Collie [Cavanagh]’s plans would be but if he was the only player they did lose, then they’d have a good base of players there.
“Darragh Canavan will be another year older and he’ll be the player we’ll be looking to to make a difference. He’ll be a year more developed and will become a key player. If there’s a good time for this to happen, this was probably it.
“Looking at the year, if they had to play without Cathal McShane, I don’t think Tyrone would be good enough to beat the likes of Mayo or Dublin. He just gave them a different dimension.
“Even when he came back and played those few minutes after the Australia thing, he didn’t play well but you could see the opposition were concentrating a lot on him and the likes of Darren McCurry were able to express themselves more,” said McGuigan.
