Tyrone totem O’Neill insists he will be fit to face champions

Stephen O’Neill has declared he will be fit for Tyrone’s Ulster Championship opener against All-Ireland champions Donegal in Ballybofey on Sunday week.

The former All Star sat out the county’s Allianz League Division 1 final against Dublin late last month after stepping on a ball and twisting an ankle during the warm-up in Croke Park.

It was a cruel blow for player and team given O’Neill’s sparkling form this season, even if replacement Conor McAliskey stepped up admirably with three points from play.

“The ankle’s grand,” said O‘Neill after being named the GAA/GPA Player of the League. “I’ll be back training again this week and I’m looking forward to getting back.”

O’Neill’s thumbs up is further reason for cheer for a Tyrone side that mined significant lessons from a league campaign that ended with them narrowly missing out on a first title in a decade.

The manner in which they traded blow for blow with Jim Gavin’s Dubs in that decider without their main marksman was impressive, although O’Neill, like most other people, isn’t expecting such fluid fare in Donegal.

“We put in a good performance [against Dublin] but we lost. It was an important game, a good, tight battle and the sort of intensity we’ll be meeting against Donegal, but it’s going to be a completely different type of game.

“It’ll be a lot more defensive probably and not as open or free-scoring. We’ll just have to take the good from the Dublin game and be prepared for a different challenge on Sunday week.”

Donegal have accounted for Tyrone in claiming the last two provincial titles, but Mickey Harte’s men were only a Paul Durcan save away from taking the honours last summer and have already had Donegal’s measure in the league.

Donegal will approach the campaign with the added burden of being champions on their shoulders. O’Neill knows how much of a weight that can be, but doesn’t believe it will be a major issue in late May.

“The longer a year goes on, it gets harder. Teams are getting hungrier and hungrier to beat you and they’re preparing for you because they know the type of game you play and know you inside out.”

Yet it’s four years since Tyrone knew what it was to be that side with the bulls-eye on their backs. Fewer and fewer of those who soldiered on three All-Ireland-winning sides remain. Transition has been a far from transient word of late. Chart their graph since the last time they claimed Sam and it shows a team engaged in a precipitous spin: from an Ulster title and five-point defeat to Cork in an All-Ireland semi-final in 2008 to a 10-point loss to Kerry in a third round qualifier last year.

“The hope must be that the defeat in Killarney marked the point where their share price bottomed out.

“We met very hungry teams — Donegal and Kerry last year.

“We just weren’t good enough on those two occasions. They’ve set the standard and raised the bar, but we’re trying to reach that bar and surpass it.”