FIXTURE FRENZY ALL IN A DAY’S WORK!

NFL Div 1 Tyrone v Cavan, Healy Park, 2.00pm

RONAN MCNAMEE has baulked at the crammed fixture schedule facing Tyrone as they bid to return to the Allianz Football League final.

The Red Hands host Cavan today in a refixture of the Round 3 tie that was rained off last month – guaranteeing five matches over consecutive weekends. That figure will rise to half a dozen weekends of action if Tyrone, currently sitting in joint second spot in Division One, qualify for the April 9 final.

Full-back Mcnamee joked: “Monaghan, Cavan, Donegal, Mayo and then Kerry – a handy run of fixtures!

“It does take a lot out of you. If you take a heavy knock, you’ve no recovery time, especially now when we’re playing five weeks on the bounce. Five weeks on the bounce at county level will be nuts. But there’s no other way for it.”

Referee David Gough will return to Omagh today having called off the original fixture after a pitch inspection last month.

There was anger that the postponement was only announced around an hour before the scheduled throw-in time.

The Cavan players were already at the ground while Tyrone were preparing to make the short journey from a meeting point to the ground.

Mcnamee said: “If it rains again maybe they will have a backup plan. It must have been a quarterto-two when we got final word. Cavan were in Healy Park at that stage.”

A win for Tyrone, to keep them among just five teams in the country who are unbeaten so far, would lift them a point clear at the top. Cavan, currently second from bottom with a single point, will take heart from drawing with Tyrone in the Championship last year when their towering forwards appeared to unsettle Mcnamee and co.

He said: “They loaded their fullforward line with big men but we broke maybe 70% of the high balls that went in, possibly more, and you can’t win them all.

“There might have been 15 high balls and we broke 12 of them.”