All-Star Mattie Donnelly wants Tyrone to atone in Croker

All-Star midfielder Mattie Donnelly says individual awards are no compensation for Tyrone’s failure to back up their Ulster title with a serious bid for the All-Ireland.

He said Tyrone’s main focus for 2017 is to give a better showing of themselves the next time they get to Croke Park.

A season that identified Donnelly as the stand-out midfielder in the country, earned him a first Ulster medal and a second All Star, the year was ultimately regarded as a failure as Tyrone failed to convert their good provincial form into a spot in the latter stages of the competition.

The Trillick clubman said individual garlands were of little solace after a sub-par display from the team in their one-point All-Ireland quarter-final defeat to Mayo. He said work has begun already to sort out their Croke Park issues.

“Obviously, we have an Ulster title to retain. That’ll be very tough, so we can’t look much further than that,” said the 25-year-old.

“And if we get to Croke Park, the number one aim is to give a better account of ourselves than we did this year. That’s a very attainable target. That, at the minute, is our main focus. There’s a lot of work to go in to get that stage and it’s well under way at the minute.

“What would it have taken us to be a point the other side of that loss to Mayo and then a semi-final and a final? You just never know.

“When you’re in this game and you put in that much time you think of it that way rather than being happy about being beaten in the quarter-finals.

“That’s the way we look at it and that’s what we’ll be looking to address that we don’t have those shortcomings next year.”

Confirmation that Mickey Harte had agreed to return as manager for another year was likely a relief to the Tyrone squad, and the hope now is that he can lead the county to a fourth All-Ireland title with a very different squad than their last win in 2008.

This year a handful of the county’s victorious U21s from 2015 were brought into the squad, and Donnelly sees their arrival as a vital piece of the jigsaw — despite Sam Maguire being absent for the last eight years.

“When you say that, there’s boys that have won All-Ireland minors in ’08 and ’10 and U21s who have won an All-Ireland as recently as 2015 so it’s fresh in a lot of people’s minds that they’re at that level.

“Obviously the itch, as each year passes, to get back there grows so hopefully it will culminate in a good showing next year. If you improve those games in Croke Park with a young squad you never know what can happen.”