Mickey Harte has admitted he faces a huge task in lifting morale among his squad ahead of this weekend’s clash with Dublin.
A thumping 19-point defeat to Galway, coupled with the loss of Allstar full forward Cathal McShane to a serious ankle injury, has hammered a serious dent in Tyrone’s Division One title hopes and switched the emphasis to the prospect of a relegation battle.
The All-Ireland champions visit Healy Park on Saturday evening and the Red Hand boss is hoping for a defiant response following a devastating reversal at Tuam.
“That’s where it’s at, that’s life now and we have to go and lick our sores and get ready for Dublin coming to Omagh,” said Harte.
“It could be good to get a team like Dublin, it’s always good to get quality teams to come and play you in the National League, but we need to really dig deep this week.
“Everybody is very down about the outcome of that game, both the score-line and losing Cathal.
“That has an awful impact on players who play around him and play with him, and so looking forward to him giving so much of himself again.”
After losing an Ulster derby to Monaghan, the Red Hands bounced back to score an impressive win over Kerry, but Harte has no way of knowing whether his players can rebuild their confidence sufficiently to halt the Dubs’ unbeaten run.
“We’ll only know that on Saturday night. We don’t have the answer to that right now. we can only do what we believe to be the best thing during the week.
“I told the players, there’s two ways you can look at this. You can say we are a horrible team and we were battered off the field, or you can say we are a decent team and we beat Kerry the last game out.
“We’re possibly not either of those. We’re not a great team and we’re not a horrible team. We’re somewhere in between, we’re a work-in-progress, and we have got to believe that we’re better than that score-line.”
A 2-25 to 0-12 hammering at Tuam was the heaviest defeat Harte has suffered during his 17-year reign as Tyrone manager. He’s hoping that was a one-off, and a freak score-line not to be repeated.
“I’m not going to be influenced by the nature of the score-line, I just want to believe that it’s one of those days that thanks be to God hasn’t happened very often to me in sport, but it did, which means that that’s something else that I have to use as my experience for the future.”
The margin of defeat could have serious implications further down the line, as it leaves the Red Hands with a significant deficit in the score difference column, which will be used to separate teams tied on points in the final league standings.
“From here on in it’s very critical that we get points. And because of the nature of that score-line, we can’t even be level with people on points now, because of the score difference.
“Nobody else will have a deficit like that, so it really puts us into a very bad place if we don’t pick up some more points.
“Maybe if it was only a one- or two-point game, and if you can be tying with somebody at the end of the season, for a low number of points, you have a chance.
“But we don’t have that luxury any more, so everybody around us, that score-line is as good as a point for them”.
