Devlin feels the Tyrone underage plan is working

TYRONE u-20 manager Paul Devlin was reappointed on a new three-year term last week, and he says the influx of young players into the senior panel has been a source of encouragement.

Darragh Canavan, Tiarnan Quinn and Donaghmore goalie Lorcan Quinn, who played in the Tyrone u-20’s All-Ireland semi-final defeat to Dublin prior to Christmas, are presently part of the senior intercounty panel, while a surprising number of other county players have come through the u-20 team in the last couple of years alone.

Bringing through players to the senior team has been Devlin’s mantra all along, so he’s satisfied that the conveyor belt is working just fine at the moment.

“I was counting one night and I think there’s something like 14 players from the last three years who came through the u-20 team and are now on Feargal (Logan) and Brian’s (Dooher) preliminary panel.

“You’ve the likes of Benny Gallen, Brian Kennedy, Tiarnan Quinn, Darragh Canavan. There’s young Aidan Clarke from Omagh, and Clogher’s Conor Shields, who’s a super player with a great attitude. The players seem to be coming through at the right time so hopefully we’re doing something right.”

Devlin guided the team to back-to-back Ulster Championships in 2019 and 2020, and after taking time to think about it, decided that he’d be willing to give it another go. He also says that he doesn’t mind that a decision wasn’t made until after Christmas.

“There was no panic in it. Our main priority for most of last year was getting the championship completed, and then we’d take it from there. We had time to go over stuff but it was difficult with Covid. We’ve basically just decided to carry on as before.”

Even though collective training is barred at the moment, Devlin has still managed to assemble a preliminary panel, which will be whittled down ahead of the championship.

The final backroom team is yet to be confirmed as well, but it’s expected that most of them will be back. The Ulster series is supposed to go ahead at the end of March, but the way things are going, it wouldn’t be a major surprise if that’s pushed back to a later date.

“We’ve got a panel at the moment and then we’ll trim it down once we get the lads out on the field again. A lot of the lads came through the minor team which reached the Ulster final three years ago, so it’ll be interesting to see how they’ve progressed, and obviously there’ll be variations from player to player.”

The Ulster Minor championship is still ongoing, but Devlin wouldn’t be surprised if some of Collie Holmes’s team step up to the senior panel sooner rather than later.

“We’ve been liaising with Collie as well and seeing how they’re getting on. Some of the lads who are on the current minor group are very good and could possibly step up. We’ll see how that goes, it obviously depends on how the minor championship pans out. We still have 15 or 16 of last year’s u-20 panel still eligible for selection – the likes of Cormac Quinn, Simon Garrity, Conall Devlin and Neil Kilpatrick are back again this year.”