Tyrone’s Mattie Donnelly has been ruled out for the rest of the season by a serious knee injury.
He will miss the Tyrone club championship in a major blow to Trillick’s prospects of winning a first title since 2019.
Donnelly sustained the injury while playing for Trillick in the Kilmacud Sevens on All-Ireland final weekend.
His long-term absence is also likely to impact his involvement in Tyrone’s pre-season later this year, and could hasten the end of an inter-county career spanning 14 years.
“He’s a big loss, and other men need to step up to the plate and raise their game,” said Trillick team-mate Ciaran Daly.
“Everybody in the team is going to have to raise their game another five, ten per cent, if not more.
“We know what he has given to Trillick over his career, and every man is going to have to dig a lot deeper.
Read more:
- Colm Cavanagh: Mattie Donnelly showed Bruno Fernandes how real leaders should behave
- Tyrone bosses Feargal Logan and Brian Dooher seek new three-year term
“But we have men who can come in and do the job, we have boys coming slowly back from injury.”
Trillick are defending Division One League champions, and currently sit fourth in the table.
“We were disappointed with our Championship last year, and there was then a big push on for the League,” said Daly.
“We hadn’t won it in so long, and it was great to get over the line that day against Killyclogher in Dromore.
“We’re going to give it our all in the remaining games, but obviously Championship is the main one, and we’ll try and peak at the right time.”
They picked up a hard-earned point in a 1-10 to 0-13 draw at Coalisland at the weekend, staging a late revival with a stoppage time equaliser from Ryan Gray.
“It’s a tough place to come to get points. In our last few games we probably weren’t good enough, and we need to improve on that, because we have a lot of tough games coming up in the remainder of the League and then coming into Championship.”
Tyrone panellists Richie Donnelly and Seanie O’Donnell also missed the clash with Coalisland, and their return will be crucial as the Reds prepare for a difficult first round Championship clash with Loughmacrory.
“They’ll be massive coming back, and when you have to men like that to come back into any team it will be a benefit.
“But there’s other men there who have held the positions, and they’ll not be easy to push out of that team.”
