Tyrone contenders no matter what Division they are in: Donnelly

MATCHES against the likes of Offaly and Louth may await Tyrone in early 2026 after they lost their place at the top table with relegation last weekend from Division One, but a defiant Mattie Donnelly insists that the county remain ‘contenders’ no matter where they are plying their trade in league football.

The side at least went down fighting, securing two victories and a draw from their last three outings, the most recent an emphatic seven point win over Dublin on Sunday at O’Neills Healy Park. However with their fate lying in the hands of others, Tyrone were unable to curry a favour elsewhere on a frantic day of deliberations, and their destiny was sealed.

On paper it’s not the ideal scenario heading into the Championship but Mattie Donnelly believes that the side can take momentum from their results in March.

“ Yeah, the results were very positive against three top teams. The earlier form and results came home to cost us, but we’ve shown a good ability to learn from those games and improve from those games and that’s a massive trait to have, particularly when you’re going into Championship football.

“ People do learn week-on-week and game-on-game, so it’s very much taking that template into the coming weeks and months.

“ We have the personnel, we’re trending in the right direction and we’re becoming more cohesive, but we have a lot of work to do as well to get to the level of the top tier teams, so we’ll do that over the coming weeks.”

No matter the sport the dreaded ‘R’ word is always something every team is keen to avoid, but even with their relegation Donnelly feels that recent history suggest they remain livewire contenders now come the Championship.

“ It’s (relegation) not as big a deal, maybe, as in previous years. Obviously, you want to stay in Division One, but we’re still going to be contenders no matter what Division we’re in. 100 per cent.

“ We’ve seen the evidence is there over the last few years. Teams that have gone down have still been able to have a big say in the Championship as well and develop different features of their game, different players, different age groups, so it’s definitely not as bleak an output as it was.

“ Because of the quality and the depth of quality across the country now, there’s not that big a gap between the top of Division Two and the top of Division One.

“ We started out to be in Division One, we want to be in Division One. That’s the level you want to be at. We’ll take encouragement from the last few weeks and last few performances and try and carry that into the weeks and months ahead.”

One county who Tyrone will be tackling in the league next season is Cavan, but of more immediate concern for Donnelly and his colleagues is the impending clash with the Breffni Blues in Omagh in the opening round of the Ulster Championship on April 13th.

“ They have a dangerous squad as well, so we’ll be under no illusions as to the task that’s ahead there.

“ We’ve been learning and getting better every game, so we just want to take that approach into the Championship and see what happens. We’ve got work to do, obviously, but we have the right people around it.”

Meanwhile Tyrone manager Malachy O’Rourke admitted that the short turnaround from the league to the Championship meant his side had a lot of groundwork to put in in a relatively short period of time.

“ It used to be you had a six week run and you had a lot of different time to get prepared and different things. It’s different now, at least we have three weeks now to prepare for Cavan.

“ We know that that’s going to be a massive game as well because Cavan have been going very well in the league. We just have to put up with it and prepare as well as we can and hopefully we’re ready for, that challenge in two weeks’ time.”

O’Rourke admitted that Tyrone’s fate came down to fine fine margins in the end up, and he ruefully reflected back on the Galway game in Tuam when Shane Walsh equalised for the hosts with a two point free with the last kick.

“ I suppose that was the main one we felt we could have got something out of. We were leading but then the two pointers they got gave them that draw which would obviously made a big difference, we could have been league final instead of being relegated.

“ I think that everybody wants to stay in Division One. The best teams in the country are in it any given year usually and you know, you’re playing against a very high level of opposition, so there’s no doubt we wanted to stay in it.”