Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
DUBS CAN CAUGHT RED HANDED BE
Cavanagh expects to see Blues struggle to handle new-look Tyrone
SEAN CAVANAGH believes Tyrone are poised to ruffle Dublin’s feathers this year, with the new management taking over at just the right time.
With the return of county training this week, joint-bosses Brian Dooher and Feargal Logan officially take charge for the first time after Mickey Harte’s 18-year reign in the Red Hand hotseat came to an end.
And with a merging of young and experienced talent up front, former star Cavanagh believes the duo are coming on board at an opportune moment with Tyrone having struggled to unearth the same quality of forwards that set their All-ireland winning sides of 2003, ‘05 and ‘08 apart.
Last year, Harte was without 2019 All Star Cathal Mcshane due to injury and while Conor Mckenna made an impact on his return from the AFL, it would appear that the only way is up for the former Essendon Bombers man.
“That’s what excites me most about Tyrone now,” said Cavanagh, who features on TG4’S Laochra Gael on Thursday night. “There’s a couple of caveats with it but if Cathal Mcshane can get back to the form that he showed a couple of years ago.
“Conor Mckenna has had another five, six, seven months with the round ball in his hand.
“We’ve young Darragh Canavan coming in and I know Peter (his father) likes to keep the head down about him but he’s an incredible prospect and then you’ve the Mccurrys and Sluddens and Mattie Donnellys, guys like this, who are still around so I look at that team at the minute and it does strike me that Tyrone are as well stacked right now as they have been in quite a long number of years around attacking talent.
“It kind of throws me back to when I was starting out and we had that forward line with Dooher and Mcguigan and Gerard Cavlan, Peter Canavan, Stevie
O’neill. Owen Mulligan and Enda Mcginley. We had five, six brilliant attacking players.
“It gave us that confidence then to go out and take teams on in shootouts.
“As my days with Tyrone were closing in, I realised that we were playing a different brand of football that was really an adaptation of that defensive Jim Mcguinness-style football
LAST 5 SFC CLASHES 2019 Super 8s
Tyrone 0-13 Dublin 1-16 2018 All-ireland final
2018 Super 8s
Tyrone 0-14 Dublin 1-14
2017 All-ireland semi-final Dublin 2-17 Tyrone 0-11
2011 All-ireland quarter-final Dublin 0-22 Tyrone 0-15 that he was so successful with Donegal with but, for me, it didn’t really suit Tyrone.
“It didn’t suit the way that we sort of approach the game and the culture and as players, as supporters, I don’t think we were ever totally happy playing that brand of football.”
And although Tyrone have endured some difficult days against Dublin over the past decade, the three-time Allireland winner added: “I do believe Kerry’s going to be on Dublin’s coattails and I’d hope and believe Tyrone’s not a kick away either.”