Waiting game for Tyrone

SO where to now?

Before Sunday few Tyrone fans will have sought to crack the Da Vinci Code that is the labyrinthine new structure devised by the GAA big wigs for the 2023 All-Ireland Football Championship.

However with Red Hand interest in the provincial series coming to an abrupt end courtesy of Ryan O’Toole’s belter in the dying embers of the cracker against Monaghan at O’Neill’s Healy Park, the landscape has changed.

From what was anticipated to be a blockbuster Ulster semi-final clash with old adversaries Derry over the May Bank Holiday weekend, the Tyrone players will instead be frustrated spectators over the coming six weeks or so as the provincial Championships build to their conclusion.

Unlike in previous seasons however, Tyrone will avoid a perilous trek through the backdoor in 2023, with the Qualifiers no longer in place.

They will now take their place in Pot 3 for the new All-Ireland Championship format, which will comprise sixteen teams in four seeded team groups.

Eight of those places are reserved for the provincial finalists, while the next eight come from the final league rankings, which take promotion/relegation and league finals into account.

Tyrone’s loss on Sunday has cemented their seeding in Pot 3 alongside Mayo, whom they can not now play and two others to be determined.

Here are the Pot breakdowns for the All-Ireland at this point:

Pot 1: Connacht, Leinster, Ulster and Munster SFC winners

Pot 2: Connacht, Leinster, Ulster and Munster SFC runners-up

Pot 3: Mayo, Tyrone, Loser of Galway/ Roscommon, 12th ranked team

Pot 4: 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th ranked teams