AN ankle injury could rule Tyrone playmaker Darragh Canavan out of the Red Hands’ Ulster Championship quarter-final against Cavan but full-forward Cathal McShane is expected to be fully fit for the July 11 showdown.
Errigal Ciaran clubman Canavan was withdrawn after 10 minutes’ of Tyrone’s Division One semi-final against Kerry with ankle ligament damage and his participation in the Healy Park clash is rated doubtful.
However, the news on McShane, who missed the entire NFL programme, is much better. The Allstar forward has been out of action since he injured his ankle playing against Galway in Tuam in February last year and he missed out on last season’s Championship after a recovery setback in August.
Fellow forward Paul Donaghy reported yesterday that the Owen Roe’s clubman is close to full fitness.
“Cathal has been back training for a good while now and he's just improving all the time,” said Donaghy.
“Getting back to where he was is obviously going to be really difficult with the injury he did have but if we can get him back he'll definitely be a great addition.”
Over-looked by Mickey Harte, despite fine form in Dungannon Clarke’s breath-taking run to last year’s Tyrone senior championship, former minor and U20 star Donaghy was drafted into the panel by new management dup Feargal Logan and Brian Dooher.
He burst on to the inter-county scene this season with 10 points on debut against Donegal. Without scoring as heavily, he was continued to show well throughout Tyrone’s League campaign and hopes to bring that form into the Championship.
“There was maybe a wee bit more talk about it (after his debut) but I still personally treated every game the same after that,” he said.
“Things haven’t worked as well as that since but I knew it was going to be difficult to replicate that form. It is a target for me to try and get back to playing games like that without a doubt.”
Logan and Dooher have ushered in move away from a counter-attacking set-up to a more front-foot gameplan and Donaghy says the new strategy could play to his strengths.
“With Dungannon that's the way we play, we press up on the kick-outs and we just attack and it doesn't matter if it's the first minute or the last minute,” he said.
“Obviously you have to manage the game differently at different times but it's a style of football I'm used to playing and a style of football I like to play so it suits perfectly.”
Conscious that the new approach will take time to bed-in, Donaghy urged Tyrone fans to show patience with their team but Tyrone will be expected to turn over a Cavan side that was relegated to Division Four on July 11.
“They have taken a wee bit of a dip in form but Championship and League are completely different competitions,” said Donaghy of last year’s Ulster champions.
“Cavan showed last year that they really are a strong Championship side, they have all that experience from going the distance and they are going to take that into our game and we really need to be firing on all cylinders if we’re going to get a result.”
He added: “Donegal looked really strong and really efficient (against Down). They are definitely coming into form at the right time of the year and they will be hard to beat but I think every team in Ulster has a great chance.
“All we can really try and do is prepare the best we can so we can go out and perform on the day and hopefully we can be the winners at the end of it. We will look no further than Cavan now; that is our only focus and it’s the only thing we are talking about at the minute.”
