O’Neill rules out Red Hand return

STEPHEN O’NEILL has ruled out a dramatic return to the Tyrone team for the All-Ireland football final against Kerry in three weeks.

The natural successor to Peter Canavan at full-forward and one of the stars of the win over the Kingdom in the 2005 decider hasn’t played for Tyrone since last year’s All-Ireland quarter-final against Meath.

He had been plagued by a knee problem and underwent surgery in October, but announced his intercounty retirement in January due to his injury woes. However, the 27-year-old has since returned to club action and has impressed with Clann na nGael

“I feel I am coming back into a wee bit of form and starting to play games with the club. And the leg is starting to become a lot stronger,’’ he explained.

“The door is closed (to me). There will be no call at this stage, I think. The boys are doing well enough.

“I’m just too long out of it. I don’t know if I would be able to manage that pace.’’

He also ruled out any suggestion of him being used as an impact sub in the way Canavan was in the 2005 final, when he went into the game with an injury. “I’ll leave that to somebody else — Mugsy (Owen Mulligan) or someone like that. It would be good to be involved, but there’s no chance of that now.’’

He continued: “It’s going to be a very tough game. Kerry are going for three-in-a-row and I suppose the team they’d want to beat would be Tyrone — to maybe confirm how good a team they are. I think Tyrone will be all right, they are working very hard and everybody seems to be coming right at the right time. Both teams have had a lot of tough games, but I just don’t think it comes down to the amount of games you play in a year. It’s just on the day. There have been some freak results this year in the championship. It will be down to who plays well on the day and I hope that will be Tyrone.’’