Cavan chaos leads to Tyrone Ladies postponement

Tyrone’s National League campaign reached an unexpected end last Sunday when Cavan failed to field for the Division Two match at Newtownstewart.

An email received by Tyrone secretary Rita Hannigan around midnight on Saturday from her Cavan opposite number confirmed the visitors would be unable to field due to the ‘unavailability of players, due to a major row begin the scenes in the Breffni County.

Former Tyrone manager Gerry Moane, now at the helm of Cavan alongside Beragh man Barry Grimes, has been left with a massive headache with the players withdrawing their services over what they claim has been a breach of an agreed players charter between County Board, players and the GPA.

Moane confirmed that after a handful of meetings the agreement was signed but it appears that in a podcast last Monday the players indicated the terms, signed across the board by all counties, were not met.

Expenses to players, promises of training gear and then failure to allow a couple of player fundraisers to proceedd were the final straw and so the action was taken to call a halt to Sunday’s game. The players were full of praise for the management and were keen to underline that only for Moane and Grimes they would have taken action sooner.

There is no such player discontent within the Tyrone camp as they reflect on a decent league campaign that saw a handful of new faces step up.

From a Tyrone point of view they will now set the focus on the Ulster Intermediate Championship and an opener with Monaghan.

Tyrone boss Sean O’Kane had planned to try a few positional switches for the Cavan encounter and with players still out injured Sunday would have been a good opportunity to give several new faces a run-out.

As it is Tyrone finish their campaign on nine points, comfortably sitting in mid table in Division Two, a situation which O’Kane will be happy with given how competitive the matches were. The manager will now restructure his championship build up after Sunday’s shock postponement and no doubt take in matches in the Tyrone League which is set to begin shortly.