Mickey Harte admits the extent of Cathal McShane’s ankle injury picked up against Galway remains a real worry this week.

Tyrone – who finished the game with 13 men – were on the wrong end of a 2-25 to 0-12 drubbing in Tuam on Sunday last.

It doesn’t get any easier for the Red Hand outfit who welcome Dublin to Healy Park, Omagh this Saturday night.

Still, the bigger picture remains Tyrone’s huge Ulster SFC opener away to Donegal on May 17. It now looks certain that they’ll be planning for that trip without their All-Star forward.

Harte said: “His ankle is at least dislocated, we don’t know the extent of the damage yet. But it’s pretty serious. The doctor says it’s definitely a bad injury. And bad and all that the scoreline was, I think that’s the worst thing that’s happened to us today.”

He added: “We don’t know the finer detail of that. It’s just one of those things. Players land 1000 times a season and they’re ok. Sometimes you just land on a bad way and it’s just so unfortunate because he made such an effort to decide to stay at home with us. And now he’s gone for God knows how long.”

Meanwhile, Tyrone hopes of Conor McKenna lining out for them this summer have been dealt a blow with Essendon assistant coach Mark Harvey saying he expects the AFL star to return to their ranks in the coming days.

“We’ve been in constant contact, the club, with Conor over the period of time that he’s been away. We hope he’s enjoying himself and relaxing. We’d like to think that he comes back pretty soon and hopefully we can have him available for selection too.

“It’s looking promising and our support staff have done an enormous job with this. He’s done the majority of pre-season [training] and he’s still training over there.

“Conor is a guy that comes up really quick … so I would say that Conor, pending when he does come back, that he’ll be available for round one.”