Moran and Higgins out for Mayo
Moran was stretchered off three minutes into a club league game on Sunday after sustaining knee and ankle ligament damage and is definitely out of the Cork match.
All Star corner back Keith Higgins has not recovered from a hamstring injury picked up in the victory over Donegal and joins Andy Moran and Alan Dillon on the treatment table.
Full-forward Jason Doherty is also considered a doubt while Cathal Freeman broke his collarbone playing for Aghamore over the weekend.
Meanwhile as Kerry travel to Omagh in a final desperate bid to avoid what would be an unthinkable drop to Division Two, Tyrone defender Joe McMahon has warned the home side will not be distracted by their opponents’ predicament.
“Obviously they’ll be fighting for survival and we’ll want to be moving on. You can’t expect to turn out one week and have a good performance and then the next week not so,” said McMahon.
He insisted the fact that Tyrone don’t need the points will not take the competitive edge off the game.
“I don’t think so. There’s always going to be a competitive edge when you meet Kerry.”
Tyrone are keen to develop a measure of consistency as they build towards their Ulster Championship clash with Donegal.
“It’s a matter of finding that consistency, and we’ll want to be getting that coming into the league semi-finals.”
McMahon feels it’s inevitable that last summer’s All-Ireland Qualifier defeat in Killarney will occupy the minds of some of the Tyrone players.
“I’m sure it will be sitting in the back of the minds of a few boys. We saw what it meant to Kerry at the end of that game.”
“We know it’s going to be a tough challenge with Kerry, and we know what they bring to any important game.
“They have a lot of their established players back again now, and it will be a more difficult task for us.”
* Owen Mulligan could be set for a recall to the Tyrone squad. The treble All-Ireland winning attacker was back in the fold at the weekend when he played in an in-house game at Garvaghey.
