By Niall Gartland

JOINING an experienced senior intercounty panel sounds like a daunting enough experience, but young Tyrone forward Conor Cush seems like a natural fit for the jersey.

Cush, who made his debut in Tyrone’s McKenna Cup opener against Fermanagh, comes from good stock – he’s the son of Adrian, a celebrated forward in his day – but it’s fair to say that he’s already forging his own path on the football pitch.

He’s enjoyed a great deal of success with Donaghmore at underage level and is already a key part of their senior team, he starred for Tyrone in their memorable run to All-Ireland u-20 honours, and he’s vice-captain of Ulster University’s Sigerson Cup team.

He’s linked up with the Tyrone senior panel alongside a number of others on that All-Ireland winning u-20 team including Ruairi Canavan, Niall Devlin and Michael McGleenan, and he’s finding the transition to senior county football enjoyable.

It’s early days, and it sometimes takes young lads a few seasons to get up to scratch on the strength and conditioning front, but everything we’ve seen from Cush suggests he could definitely be one for the future.

“I’ve just been there for a few months at this stage. There’s been plenty of running, we’re trying to bank up a good bit of fitness.

“All the older lads have eased me into it and have made me feel comfortable,” Cush said.

Asked if it’s surreal being part of the same team as players he grew up watching and idolising as a youngster, Cush said: “It’s different but when I was at Primary School in Donaghmore, Peter Harte was actually one of my teachers. It’s cool playing alongside him now, he’s been a great player for Tyrone for as long as I can nearly remember. He was very involved in coaching when I was at school, he’s made a great impression in Donaghmore.”

Cush is still part of the Tyrone u-20 set up, who get their Ulster League campaign up and running in the middle of February.

Manager Paul Devlin and his assistants Dermot Carlin and Owen Mulligan are also back for another year, and Cush says ‘Mugsy’ deserves credit for their sensational forward play last year, culminating in a deserved All-Ireland final victory over Kildare.

“Mugsy was top class. He taught us so many wee tricks that made it so much easier for us – stuff about movement off the shoulder and making the right runs.

“If you take Ruairi Canavan’s goal in the All-Ireland final, that all came from him, we’d been practising it all along and it finally worked in the final.

“I remember Ciaran Bogue kicked it into me, I won the ball, slipped it to Ruairi and he did the rest, and that all came from Mulligan’s coaching.

“It’s the same management team this year which is brilliant and hopefully there’ll be the same outcome at the end of the season”