What is wrong with Tyrone?

That’s two back-to-back defeats to Donegal. The feeling after the Ulster Championship semi-final was disappointment but with some optimism for the rest of the summer. This is very much in contrast to the feeling last night in Ballybofey where Tyrone endured a frustrating second half, second best in every department.

What is wrong with Tyrone? We clearly have experienced players. We also have a plethora of decorated underage stars champing at the bit to get involved. Brian Dooher perseveres on the sideline with a fine backroom of stalwarts while Feargal Logan recovers from a stroke.

However, there is a huge disconnect between supporters and this team. We are outnumbered by the opposition at most grounds despite having had plenty of success in recent times. Were we too spoilt by the 2000s? Sure, the calendar is stuffed with too many relatively meaningless games but every county is facing this. There is no enthusiasm in Tyrone while our neighbours Donegal, Armagh and Derry supporters can’t get enough of it.

This summer is too early for this year’s All Ireland U20 champions to come through. Hell, it’s still too early for many of our best U20 champions of 2022 to make their mark. Ruairí Canavan is a case in point. He should be afforded the same time which his brother Darragh had to find his place in the team, something which we are truly bearing the fruits of now.

The real pity is that the cream of those two U20 teams likely won’t get a chance to tog out alongside our standard bearers of 2021 – the likes of Niall Morgan, Mattie Donnelly and Peter Harte. I think we missed a valuable chance to win more silverware after 2021. Too many of our squad walked away and there is a long list of fine footballers in Tyrone who will likely never return to the setup.

Management will face many questions in the next few weeks. Is the desire the same as it was in 2021? That remains to be seen.

Next up in Group 3 is a home game against Clare in Omagh. Anything but a win will be shambolic. We have not faced Clare in a competitive game since 1996 and never before in Championship. We follow that with a meeting with Cork at a neutral ground, somehwhere in Leinster, I presume. We are more than capable of winning both of those games but shouldn’t take anything for granted. Decent results in those should set us up for a preliminary quarter final but it’s hard to imagine us winning a quarter-final at Croke Park right now. That’s sadly where we are at.