By 
DERRY manager Ciarán Meenagh will have to plan without key players for Saturday’s Division Two clash with his native Tyrone at Celtic Park.
While Meenagh is in his sixth season, over two tenures, with the Oakleaf County, he will come up against plenty of familiar faces this weekend.
The Loughmacrory man has been at the heart of his club’s rise to the top in Tyrone football.
He will be plotting the downfall of clubmates Eoin McElholm, Ruairi McCullagh, Cathal and Aodhan Donaghy with whom he helped to chart their path to Senior Championship glory last season.
“They’re all big games,” Meenagh said of what has the makings of a tight Division Two campaign.
“We’re playing Tyrone but then you have Kildare coming after that and different games.
“Depending on how the results go, will become important for various reasons or different reasons. They’re all big games but they’re not season defining either.”
There is the extra storyline with a substantial number of the Loughmacrory winning management team being involved with Derry including manger Martin Boyle and coach Luke Barrett.
Add in Malachy O’Rourke and Ryan Porter’s knowledge of the Derry club scene and Saturday’s game has quite the backstory.
Meenagh will have to plan without key players Dan Higgins and Lachlan Murray who join Odhrán Lynch and Eoin McEvoy on the injured list.
The Oakleafers will also have to monitor the fitness of goalkeeper Ryan Scullon.
Murray and Scullion were named to start Saturday’s opener against Meath with the latter withdrawn during the warmup at Croke Park, just ahead of throw-in.
“He (Scullion) got a bit of a niggle on Wednesday night and we thought he was going to be okay,” Meenagh said.
“He was down to play but he was struggling with his long kicking, so we had to make that change literally two or three minutes before throw-in which wasn’t ideal.
“That’s just one of them things you have to be prepared for.”
In Scullion’s absence, Magherafelt’s Shea McGuckin stepped in for his league debut.
Lavey’s Louis Regan is the other goalkeeper on the panel, while Odhrán Lynch is on his way back from hip surgery with championship football a potential target.
Lachlan Murray scored 0-6 across Derry’s two McKenna Cup games but picked up a knock in the week of the game and wasn’t risked with the longer-term view in mind.
“We felt that it’s probably better he be out for a couple of weeks now, just to get him right because you could lose him for two months,” Meenagh said.
“We’ll get (to) the break in the league and he should become an option again for us then.”
Dan Higgins is expected to be out for six weeks following a knee injury picked up on Sigerson Cup duty with Queen’s.
Ballinascreen’s Martin Bradley, who broke into the team under Paddy Tally last season, has returned to training but Saturday came too early.
