Cavanagh calls time on Tyrone career

TWO-TIME All-Star Colm Cavanagh has announced that he is retiring from intercounty football after 13 seasons with Tyrone.

The 33-year-old released a statement this evening saying that it was “time for me to step back and pass my Tyrone jersey on to the next in line”.

The news has come as a bolt from the blue with Tyrone’s Ulster Championship quarter-final clash with Donegal just over five weeks away, and he was a regular starter right until the very end of his career.

Cavanagh is third on the list of all-time appearances for the county and was drafted into the senior set-up in 2007, three years after starring in Tyrone’s run to the All-Ireland minor title in 2004.

There he excelled as targetman, but he under Mickey Harte he mostly played in midfield before he was also reinvented as a versatile sweeper in the latter half of his career.

He won All-Stars in 2017 and 2018 and the news of his departure means there are no longer any playing members of the panel with connections to the All-Ireland winning team from 2008.

In his statement, he said how much it had meant to him to represent Tyrone.

“I am very proud and honoured to have worn the Tyrone jersey for as long as I have and have had some of the best days of my life whilst wearing it,” he said.

“I wish the current and future teams the very best of luck in the season ahead and I have no doubt they will be raising silverware together for many years to come.”