By Daire Walsh

FOLLOWING much injury frustration in recent years, Chloe McCaffrey is glad to be back in the mix as Tyrone look to make a big impact on their return to the TG4 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship.

A starter at left corner-forward as the Red Hand defeated Meath to win the TG4 All-Ireland intermediate football title in 2018, McCaffrey collected the Mary Quinn Memorial Cup for a second time when Tyrone defeated Laois in a showpiece encounter at Croke Park on August 3 of last year.

Yet it wasn’t until an epic extra-time victory over Westmeath at the semi-final stage that McCaffrey was in a position to see action in the 2025 edition of the All-Ireland IFC.

While she was hoping to play a significant role in the subsequent decider against Laois, a hamstring issue in the lead-up to the game meant it wasn’t until the closing stages of the contest that she was introduced off the bench.

It has also been a slow journey back to full fitness since then, but McCaffrey returned to top form with a magnificent 3-1 haul in Tyrone’s triumph over Donegal in the TG4 Ulster senior football championship in Lifford on May 3.

“Probably the last three or four years [I’ve struggled with injury]. Just with ankle injuries and I had to get surgery on my hamstring in October, so it kept me idle most of last season too. I wasn’t really involved at all in the intermediate championship run. I got maybe 30 minutes in the Westmeath game and then a week before the final, I pulled it again,” McCaffrey recalled.

“Thankfully now I’m on the right side of it and hopefully touch wood that’s the end of them. I just have to continue managing my load and hopefully get through in the next few weeks and next few months.

“Really enjoying it, really enjoying being back. Normally this time of year I’m always on the physio bed or in the gym rehabbing. It’s great to be out in the good weather and hopefully long may it continue.”

Breaking back into the Tyrone starting line-up was no easy feat for McCaffrey with a number of those who featured prominently in the forward line last year still very much part of the set-up. On her way to being named TG4 Intermediate Players’ Player of the Year for 2025, Sorcha Gormley held off stiff competition from her fellow Red Hand attacker Aoife Horisk.

Chloe McCaffrey (left) in club action

Additionally, despite contending with her own injury problems, Sperrin Óg’s Niamh O’Neill was back in the first 15 for last August’s All-Ireland IFC showpiece and scored 0-7 as Tyrone recorded an eventual 2-16 to 1-13 triumph over Laois. Sláine McCarroll is another key figure in attack and St Macartan’s star McCaffrey was delighted to be able to secure a spot alongside this above-mentioned quartet for their provincial opening round win against Donegal.

“It’s an incredibly hard team to get into. Especially that forward line with the calibre of players. Those girls like Niamh, Sorcha and Aoife, to name a few. Slaine. Those girls that could probably make any team.

“To get back in playing there, it’s obviously brilliant, but it’s only one game and I haven’t really cemented my place yet. I’m happy to just get playing on the field. Get a few minutes under my belt and hopefully kick on really.”

Although she didn’t feature in Tyrone’s Ulster round robin win over Armagh at O’Neill’s Healy Park in Omagh on May 10, the two teams on display were much changed from their previous encounters. Because both themselves and the Orchard County kick-started their respective provincial campaigns with victories against Donegal, it was already guaranteed the sides would meet again in tomorrow’s TG4 Ulster senior football championship final at Find Insurance  Owenbeg (throw-in 2pm).

Tyrone ladies senior captain Aobhinn McHugh, getting a momento selfie with her team mates Aine Grimes, Chloe McCaffrey, and Ciara Colton, at a press night at Garvaghy, prior to their All Ireland final. Picture; Michael Cullen

Darren McCann’s charges are sure to take plenty of confidence from their 1-10 to 0-8 success on home soil a little under a fortnight ago, but they will be expecting a much different challenge from Armagh on this occasion. At the senior grade since winning an All-Ireland intermediate title of their own in 2012, McCaffrey believes the Orchard have set the benchmark that other Ulster counties are looking to match.

“Armagh are the standard bearers in Ulster and even Ireland. They’ve been unlucky in the past, probably, not to push on and get that All-Ireland. The players that they have, the two Mackins [Aimee and Blaithin], the Clann Eireann girls. They’re a brilliant, brilliant outfit. They’re going to be very, very hard to beat.

“You want to place yourself against those girls. Coming up against Aimee and Blathin, Lauren McConville, all those girls. They are the best in Ireland and you’re only going to see how good you are if you’re playing those teams.

“Growing up, since I’ve been involved, Armagh has always been the team that has been beating you and beating you well. It’s going to be a very difficult challenge, but one that we’re looking forward to.”

Back when they were previously a newly-promoted team in 2019, McCaffrey contributed 1-3 as Tyrone defeated Donegal in the group stages of the TG4 All-Ireland senior football championship at TEG Cusack Park. This helped them to reach the quarter-final stage of the Brendan Martin Cup and even though it ended in a comprehensive loss to a more experienced Cork side, it was an encouraging season overall for the Red Hand.

A tough group awaits them regardless of how tomorrow’s Ulster final pans out, but McCaffrey – who works as a buyer for the Terex Corporation in Dungannon – believes Tyrone are more than capable of dining at the top table.

“2019, that was probably one of the best games that I’ve been involved in with Tyrone, getting to an All-Ireland quarter-final. Unfortunately, it didn’t go for us that day, but definitely with the team we have here at the minute, you’d be hoping to push on and trying to get the best out of each other,” McCaffrey added.

“You’re playing football for a short time. You want to make the most of it. I’ve been playing since 2017 and this is our first Ulster senior final. The years pass by and you want to make them all count really.”