Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
I’VE LOST HOPE IN FULL YEAR
Red Hand comeback kid O’neill has given up on any Championship football in 2020
TYRONE attacker Ronan O’neill has given up on hopes for county football this year.
O’neill can’t see how the safety and logistical requirements can be brought together in order to begin the 2020 Championship.
O’neill’s return to the squad following last year’s self-imposed exile has been cut short by Covid19 and he fears he will have to wait another season for the chance to re-establish himself in Mickey Harte’s team.
“I definitely don’t think there will be any county football, that’s my personal opinion,” he said. “My heart is saying yes but in my head, I don’t think so, no.
“You see with the Premier League, some people don’t want to go back, and some people do want to go back. And that’s in a professional sport. And it’s going to be very hard to police that as well.”
However, the Omagh St Enda’s man is more upbeat about the prospects for club football.
“Fingers crossed that we get to play some sort of football, because everybody is doing some sort of training, and they’re hoping that they can reap the rewards in some way.
“If not, so be it. You have to think of your safety and that of others around you too.”
O’neill is willing to play behind closed doors, but fears chaos would ensue from a scenario where limited numbers would be permitted to attend games.
“I myself wouldn’t mind playing behind closed doors, because this is football. But for the amount of people who want to go and watch the games – how do you police that, how do you decide who goes and who doesn’t go?
“If you limit a game to a hundred (spectators), what hundred will get to go, and who doesn’t get to go?
“And then you go back to training, who’s to say who has or hasn’t got the virus?”
He admitted that the comments made by GAA president John Horan, who said in an interview on The Sunday Game that he can’t see gaelic games resuming while social distancing policies remain in place, provided a reality check to his ambitions to pull on the Tyrone shirt again in 2020.
“I was a bit disheartened to hear his comments, because you were just hoping for some sort of good news. But with that in place, it doesn’t sound too promising.
“I suppose he’s under pressure from government to make big calls too, but you’re hoping that in the next month or so, you see some kind of decline in the rate, so that we can maybe work towards a date.
“All we can do is remain positive and hopefully we get a date sooner rather than later.
“You want to be in tip-top shape when you go back into any type of football.
“So motivation-wise, it hasn’t really affected me, I just get on with it, so that when it comes around, you’re ready
for it.”