Mattie marks return with man of the match display

A PERFORMANCE for the ages saw Mattie Donnelly dominate in defence for Tyrone against Cavan in Sunday’s Ulster SFC thriller, just nine months after his future in the Red Hand jersey was under severe threat due to a serious leg injury.

But the veteran star came back stronger than ever as his display in the number six jersey earned him the man-of-the-match award. Nearly 15 years after making his senior debut, the Trillick clubman added a point for good measure as his experience proved decisive in the 1-23 to 3-16 after extra-time victory at Breffni Park.

Tyrone are now getting set to meet their old rivals, Donegal, in the Ulster semi-final this coming Sunday. It will be yet another clash against a team completely rejuvenated following the return of Jim McGuinness as manager.

But Donnelly believes that the team display in defeating Cavan by the narrowest of margins, combined with the efforts of a whole cohort of young players, will stand to the Red Hands as they bid to reach the provincial decider for the first time since the All-Ireland winning year of 2021.

“It’s nine months since my injury now, so getting back is not maybe the hardest thing. It’s getting back to a high level which is and it’s hard to know where I’m at. Today I was very nervous going into the game because I didn’t really know where I was,” he said.

“I’m going to have to get the sores flushed out of the body pretty quick because we’re going to have to get up to another level again next week against Donegal. I didn’t know if I would have 70 minutes in me, and then there was extra time.

“But you find a way and a lot of boys were probably running on empty at the end.

“You train hard for situations like this.

“We have a lot of work to do and if we perform like we did against Cavan then we might as well not show up.

“It’s advantage Donegal in regard to the preparation. They’ll be feeling good about themselves with the extra 24 hours recovery. But we’ll train hard enough, there’s a good pre-season and we train for challenges like this. We’ll have to turn around and recover pretty quickly.”

Tyrone led by eight points at one stage of the second half before being pegged back to a Cavan revival which saw them snatch two goals in quick succession. They eventually secured extra time, as this classic in the blazing heat of Breffni Park was finally decided only in the closing moments.

“It’s very clear what happened us in the second half. The black card for Padraig Hampsey affected us. He’s a big player and a steadying influence in the centre of the defence. We couldn’t replace that and didn’t deal with that momentum,” added Donnelly.

“Momentum is a hard thing to fight against. But this is a young team and we’re learning and it was a good thing to just get through it.

“I didn’t watch too much of the Donegal match. The bits that I did see I think you couldn’t be but impressed because Donegal are a team with a plan, they have serious running power and threats all over the field. We’ll have to come up with something this week to counteract that.”

“The young lads have had to step up for us and they’re proven winners. They’ve done it at every single level, they’ve good breeding and we’ve good stuff coming in Tyrone behind them so we needed them here, they’re brave and it’s a good sign for the future.”