Divison One

Tyrone v Dublin

Saturday, Healy Park, 7.15pm

MICKEY Harte laughed wryly when it was hesitantly put to him that playing Dublin could serve to sharpen the minds this week – but he wasn’t exactly dismissive of the suggestion either.

The trauma of Tuam won’t wash away overnight, but Tyrone can’t afford to let it completely derail their league campaign with three rounds of fixtures left to play.

Harte was typically philosophical after their 19-point defeat to Galway on a day where it seemed that everything that could go wrong did go wrong, and at the very least they’ll want to front up and deliver a performance they can be proud of against the Dubs on Saturday evening at Healy Park.

“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 [McShane].”

“That has an awful impact on players who play around him and play with him, and who were so looking forward to Cathal giving so much of himself again.”

While Dublin aren’t firing on all cylinders at the moment, they’re still managing to eke out victories and sit joint-top of the table with Galway.

As for Tyrone, Harte points out that they haven’t suddenly become the worst team in the country after their desperately disappointing defeat to a Galway side reborn under their new manager Padraic Joyce.

“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.

“I’m not going to be influenced by the nature of the scoreline. 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 today, which means that that’s something else that I have to use as my experience for the future.”

Tyrone sit fifth in the table, just above the danger-zone, ahead of their final matches against Dublin, Donegal and Mayo. Precedent suggests that just one more victory may prove enough to stay up, but their scoring difference has fallen off a cliff so they definitely need another positive result or two.

“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 of 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 that score-line against Galway is as good as a point for the other teams.”

It was reported midweek that Cathal McShane is set for five months on the sidelines after dislocating his ankle on Sunday. It was a cruel twist of fate given he’s recently committed his future to Tyrone after spurning an AFL career. Harte said his injury was the worst part of a terrible day in every respect.

“The saddest thing of all is Cathal McShane’s injury. You don’t like losing matches, league points come and go, but a man of his stature, to lose that again so soon after being able to keep him playing Gaelic football here, that’s the most disappointing thing of the day.

“I know how important football is to people, I know what it means to them, I know what it can do for people’s lives, but here are many more important things. And we have to keep that in perspective always.”