Tyrone “still rebuilding” says O’Neill

By Shaun Casey

MICKEY O’Neill certainly won’t be pressing any panic buttons just yet and believes Tyrone are “still rebuilding” as they hope to earn their first win of the Division Two league campaign on Sunday against Cavan.

The former Red Hand shot-stopper believes it will take Malachy O’Rourke some time to bed in the new blood that’s coming through the ranks, with several youngsters on the squad battling it out for gametime.

O’Neill, who won an Intermediate league and championship double with Clonoe last season, also points to the quality that Tyrone are currently operating without. O’Rourke’s men have one point on the board following a draw with Kildare and a round two defeat to Derry.

“On any given day anybody can beat anybody,” O’Neill explained. “Yes, Armagh and Donegal have upped their game and Derry aren’t far behind them although they have slipped this last couple of years. Tyrone at the minute, I think are still rebuilding and they’re still trying to find their feet in a way given the amount of young boys that Malachy has brought on (to the panel) in the last couple years.

“(Eoin) McElholm, Ronan (Cassidy) and Joey Clarke and this year you have Ethan Jordan – he had a deadly season last year for Eglish and he deserved to get a call up and he kicked well against Kildare, I think he kicked 1-9.

“It’s going to take time for those boys to gel and find their feet and Tyrone are still waiting on big names to come back into it too. That will maybe strengthen the team up in certain parts of the field.

“You have the likes of (Darren) McCurry there, hopefully big (Padraig) Hampsey and Rory Brennan, I haven’t seen wee Seanie O’Donnell yet.

“When you put those four names together, they’re big additions to this Tyrone team. If Tyrone get all those players back and give the young boys more game time, then they’ll not be too far away.”

O’Neill backs his county to get over the line against the Breffni Blues this weekend and get their first win of the competition.

“Tyrone probably should have beaten Kildare, and I think they know that themselves, they let that one slip,” he added.

“That would have been two points on the board, it was a deadly game of football and Tyrone were very good. Against Derry, they had a very good first half but Derry took their chances and Tyrone didn’t.

“Going into this game on Sunday, I think Tyrone will win. They’ll be kicking themselves from the Kildare game, they’ll have learned a lot from the Derry game, they know where they’re at in the table and what this game means to them, so I think they’ll come out on top.”