Tyrone County Football and Hurling

[RedHand88]

Bought 4 Jerseys at christmas for my kids and nephew feck that old hat now!!!!!!!

There was always going to be a new jersey with the 4 stars on it. Should have held off.

[God14]

Very good & honest interview in the Irish News by Ronnie O'Neill. Part 2 is in Monday's paper.

Brilliant interview
It's easy to critique players in the stands or even on here, but we are all too forgetful of the sacrifices these lads make, and the turmoil they themselves go through when things don't go to plan
The story about his brothers wedding, and not making the 26.... Whao.

[omagh_gael]

For those who haven't seen it...


FOR the best part of a decade Ronan O'Neill loved playing for Tyrone. For him, it was the ultimate privilege.

Some years it was pure magic – the chipped goals, ridiculous points, the 'Dab' celebrations, podium appearances and the chaos and imagination he brought to a football field.

Other years, playing for Tyrone tortured his soul.

Last season, which turned out to be his last, was one of those years. During Tyrone's incredible run to the 2021 All-Ireland title, O'Neill didn't know from one game to the next whether he would be involved.

He was part of the victorious Ulster final squad that overcame Monaghan, coming on as a 66th minute substitute, and was named in the Tyrone squad for the All-Ireland semi-final against Kerry a month later.

Would the St Enda's Omagh clubman make Feargal Logan and Brian Dooher's 26-man All-Ireland final squad?

The form line and the steady selection policy suggested yes, but if he'd learned anything in his 10 years with Tyrone, absolutely nothing was guaranteed.

"We'd normally train Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, but after the Kerry game we went Monday, Wednesday, Friday and my brother's wedding was on the Friday in Carlingford and I was best man," O'Neill explains.

"Management said: 'Go to the wedding'.

"And I said: 'Well, I'm not going if it's going to impact on me getting into the squad because it's the All-Ireland final. I'm not doing anything to jeopardise my place in the squad because I was in the squad for the Kerry game.

"But Feargal said: 'It'll not jeopardise it at all.'"

Management were giving no guarantees – just an assurance that attending his brother's wedding eight days out from the final wasn't going to have any tangible impact one way or the other.

O'Neill mulled it over, chatted to his brother and after some torturous deliberation he felt he couldn't afford to miss Friday night's training session.

He went to his brother's wedding, gave his best man speech, left the hotel at 6pm, raced up the road and arrived at Garvaghey at 7.25pm still in his tuxedo. The best dressed man ever to attend a Tyrone training session.

"When I arrived the team were doing video work, I got changed, trained, back in the tuxedo, back down to the wedding and stayed. I obviously didn't drink, it didn't enter my head.

"We were training on Sunday morning at nine o'clock, up the road again, trained, did well. It was match scenarios – four 10-minute games. Not that I thought that that would swing it in my favour but I was doing well to merit staying in the squad."

A teacher at St Joseph's College, Coalisland, the kids were the perfect distraction for O'Neill in the week leading up to the All-Ireland final against Mayo.

Sitting on 99 appearances for his county, the All-Ireland final would bring it up to a cool century.

"I knew after the Ulster final against Monaghan that I was on 99 games and I would target the All-Ireland semi-final or final. Id get to 100 and that would be it.

"I'd mentioned to a couple of close friends – Tiernan McCann, Conor Meyler, and a few other boys - at the start of the year it would be my last year and that I would give my all.

"I got myself into ridiculous shape. I worked with Meyler over lockdown, I went to the well. I was in a really good place when Tyrone started up again."

After Tyrone's All-Ireland breakthrough win over Kerry at the end of August, the drum roll had well and truly begun around the O'Neill County, with the schools being the excitable hub.

Some pupils would whisper and point in the corridors: 'Mr O'Neill is playing for Tyrone in the All-Ireland final."

****************

THURSDAY night before the final. The moment of truth. Ronan O'Neill is called to speak to management.

He can't believe what he's hearing. He hasn't made the squad.

"I knew it was coming once I was called over," he says.

"They pulled me aside and I said: 'This cannot be happening.' I kept saying: 'I'm always the fall guy'. As soon as they talked I just zoned out.

"This was potentially my last game and I was not even in the squad. I remember trying not to be an energy-sapper. It was hard. I put my hoodie up and they were talking to the team. The boys could see I was annoyed. A number of boys came over to me and were saying: 'Keep the head up. We need you to help the team on the day.' And I was thinking: 'How am I not going to play this last game for Tyrone?'

"I got into the car and burst out crying. I was in a bad way. I got home and went straight to my bed. Next day the school was giving me a send-off and I didn't want to be there.

"As soon as I left school, I said: 'Right, I need to get my head around this. We've a final to play, I'm one of the more experienced members of the team and I need to be positive because if I don't it's going to seep into the rest of the group.'

"In the changing room before the game it was hard and I was thinking: 'I'd just love to be one of those boys togging out. I imagined all week that I would come on and kick a point, do something in the game, and that was taken away. It was really hard to deal with, but I just had to give whatever I had to other boys... Thankfully we got over the line on the day."

****************

UPON Logan and Dooher taking the reins in 2021, opportunities in the Tyrone team had opened up significantly.

A few more out-and-out forward berths had been created in the starting line-up – good news for O'Neill – plus Gaelic football appeared to be coming back into the light from the defensive darkness of the previous decade.

The 29-year-old attacker didn't feature in Division One North wins over Donegal and Armagh or in the drawn game against Monaghan.

With things going from bad to worse down in Killarney, however, O'Neill was thrust into the action for the start of the second half in place of Paul Donaghy against a rampant Kerry.

He nabbed a point but was helpless to stop the Kingdom putting six goals past the Ulstermen.

Tyrone were forced to re-appraise everything, and that entailed personnel changes. Darragh Canavan also suffered injury in Killarney which opened up a space in the attack.

The squad was laced with attacking quality. Darren McCurry was moving well, Niall Sludden too, Conor McKenna seemed a shoo-in most days, Mattie Donnelly, Mark Bradley, Paul Donaghy's star burned brightly at the beginning of the NFL campaign and Cathal McShane was inching back to full fitness.

O'Neill, though, was firmly in Logan and Dooher's eye-line.

But come Tyrone's first Ulster Championship outing of the summer against a Cavan team at a low ebb, O'Neill didn't make the cut.

"Now, it was cut throat all year," O'Neill says. "It kept people on their toes. I just felt I should have got a chance. You can ask any of the boys. During that period of eight weeks after the Kerry hammering I was going extremely well.

"I felt after the Kerry defeat the script would be ripped up and I'd get a chance on my home ground against Cavan. You get in the team and stay there, but it didn't happen. I was scratching my head when I didn't even make the squad.

"I remember thinking then I didn't want to go back. It was a couple of weeks to a semi-final and a possible Ulster final; anything could happen. I just wanted to play football. I was in the shape of my life and I was playing well, I wanted people to see this..."

Against his own instincts he went to training on the Tuesday after the Cavan win. He spoke to no-one, played centre half-forward in an in-house game and kicked four points.

'Right," he thought. 'They have to put in the squad for the next match.'

Days before the eagerly awaited semi-final with Donegal, numbers 16 to 26 were called out.

Still no O'Neill.

"What is going on here? Boys were coming up to me and asking: 'Why are you not playing?'

"I'd have a deadly relationship with most of the forwards because you know what type of balls to kick in. I played well alongside 'Sparky' [Mark Bradley] and Darren McCurry all year, and the other forwards too. I remember McCurry saying in training: 'That man has to play.'

"If he's saying it and the backroom team is saying I'm close, I was going home so confused. I wasn't nice to be around all year. But how can I question Feargal and Brian – they won the All-Ireland at the end of the day."

All-Ireland heartache awaited Richie Donnelly too. Playing the shirt off his back against Cavan, O'Neill's 2010 All-Ireland minor team-mate suffered an injury, had to withdraw and never got back in the squad for the rest of the campaign.

Rory Brennan was another. Picked up a black card against Donegal and couldn't muscle his way back into the reckoning.

Ronan O'Neill turns on the style for Omagh in the Ulster Club Championship Picture: Margaret McLaughlin 

AFTER Tyrone seized their fourth All-Ireland title on September 11 O'Neill masked his disappointment by enjoying every last drop of the celebrations that last three or four days.

But 2021 has had scarring effect – to the point where O'Neill sought professional help from a sports psychologist in a bid to make sense of a torturous year.

"That's why I couldn't go for another year. I couldn't go through that again, mentally," he says.

"I had to go and see somebody. I went to a sports psychologist. I needed somebody to talk to about it, somebody to bounce off. I was in a bad way.

"I couldn't go back another year, play in the McKenna Cup, play the first few rounds of the League, Tyrone lose, you have an okay game, but I'm getting sacked because x, y and z are coming back from rehab and they're coming straight in again and then you're wondering why you're not playing.

"Then you're complaining to your girlfriend, your mummy and daddy. It's just a constant cycle. I don't want to do that. The best football I played was after lockdown, I played eight games and I ended up top scorer in Tyrone all year because I was playing with complete freedom. I was happy. There's nothing worse when you're not playing football."

A couple of weeks after Tyrone's All-Ireland victory, O'Neill is lining out for Omagh down in Derrylaughan: "They're playing 15 men behind the ball, rain pissing down...I just didn't want to be there."

***************

SITTING in a café on the outskirts of Dungannon on a dank Wednesday at tea-time, you sense the emotion in O'Neill's voice as he tells how his Tyrone career ended at just 29.

There's not a trace of resentment towards Logan or Dooher. They did what they had to do. They won the All-Ireland. They delivered on Tyrone's rich promise.

O'Neill totally gets that. He also knows that other team-mates suffered a similar fate.

Since he was a teenager, Ronan O'Neill was destined for great things.

He starred in Tyrone's 2010 All-Ireland minor winning team and was truly humbled and forever indebted to Mickey Harte for calling him into the senior squad in 2012.

In March of that year, he suffered a cruciate injury while training with the U21s and it probably took him longer than expected to get back to his flamboyant best.

When O'Neill hit the high notes there was none better. He was simply awesome.

Club and county honours followed in a roller-coaster career that experienced as many highs as it did lows.

Defensive formations undoubtedly hurt the trajectory of his career. In another era his narrative may have been different.

Logan and Dooher wanted him to stay on for the 2022 season, but after some soul-searching O'Neill thanked both men and politely declined.

On New Year's Eve, while on the team holiday in Orlando, O'Neill confirmed the news on his Twitter account.

"Tough to go. Was worth it all. Been a pleasure. Thanks to all who helped me achieve my dream, especially my family and Justina. Onto the next chapter."

[HokeyPokey]

Very good & honest interview in the Irish News by Ronnie O'Neill. Part 2 is in Monday's paper.

I remember thinking he looked the real deal when I saw him play for the Tyrone minors.There were times where he had really good games, but often he just didn't make an impact which seemed to be the case more and more the last few years. I think he missed a bit more speed or strength to be able to really push on and establish himself.

Maybe he deserved to be stuck with when the ground was drier, there certainly seemed to be a core group of players Harte would always stick with, but then the likes of McAliskey, O'Neill, Brennan, McCurry etc were dropped if they didn't make an impact. Obviously you want that competition there, but Logan and Dooher showed how sticking with and having confidence in someone like McCurry can reap rewards. 

[HokeyPokey]

https://www.bbc.com/sport/gaelic-games/60102870

That's McCann gone now too. Thought he had a real renaissance last year, after a few patchy years, and had a big impact. He'll be a big miss. I wonder would Cassidy have withdrew if McCann had already announced?

[tyrone08]

https://www.bbc.com/sport/gaelic-games/60102870

That's McCann gone now too. Thought he had a real renaissance last year, after a few patchy years, and had a big impact. He'll be a big miss. I wonder would Cassidy have withdrew if McCann had already announced?

He will be a loss for sure. I am a but concerned at the amount of people stepping away from the setup. A few injuries this year and tyrone could find themselves very light on high quality options coming off the bench.

[Tyrone11234]

O'Neill and mccann have been great servants to Tyrone football- O'Neill one of the best club players I've seen in Tyrone also.

[HokeyPokey]

https://www.bbc.com/sport/gaelic-games/60102870

That's McCann gone now too. Thought he had a real renaissance last year, after a few patchy years, and had a big impact. He'll be a big miss. I wonder would Cassidy have withdrew if McCann had already announced?

He will be a loss for sure. I am a but concerned at the amount of people stepping away from the setup. A few injuries this year and tyrone could find themselves very light on high quality options coming off the bench.

I'd be concerned too, especially the ability to change the game from the bench. McCann, Cassidy and Bradley is a lot of pace gone and O'Neill could pick a pass.

That said, a bit of fresh blood and hunger could help keep things fresh. It might push some other young players on, now they see an opening. The main core of the panel hasn't changed much the last few years so it could be a blessing in disguise.

[Baile an tuaigh]

That Ronan O Neill article gives you an insight to the commitment panel players give to the cause.

That's alot of class and experience that will be badly missed at training and in house games.

With the travel restrictions last year in the US a lot of American clubs have been saving up for this year and one club I know has 300k in their account.

I could see alot of quality players going state side this Summer.

[APM]

That Ronan O'Neill article was a tough read.  It would have been a tougher read for his family.

Keeping a big positive head on you, when you have been devastated by the selectors - that's tough.  The right response is to train hard and come back stronger next year. That can't be easy when you have been left on the fringes by successive management teams, but kept around the panel at the same time.  Useful for in-house matches? It would take a very strong personality not to finish up resentful. 

[toby47]

just read part 2 there in the paper. Very good interview in full.

[03,05,08]

Can anyone put in part 2 of the O'Neill interview

[5times5times]

Can anyone put in part 2 of the O'Neill interview

Or go out and buy the paper you stingey......

[Delb123]

It was rumored that tyrones provisional McKenna cup panel had a total of 45 players (not sure if this includes the 5 that have stepped aside) but if it did that would mean the current panel may not be cut much or at all? How many would be usually on the final panel? 35 36?

[toby47]

IT was a decidedly balmy evening in Orlando on New Year's Eve. The Tyrone players, management and their partners gathered around the hotel pool for dinner.

Ronan O'Neill hadn't the slightest inkling Mattie Donnelly would rise to his feet and ask for a bit of hush. It seemed fitting that Donnelly, on behalf of the squad, would officially pay tribute to O'Neill and Hugh Pat McGeary, both of whom were retiring from inter-county football.

"I made my decision before I went on holiday," O'Neill says.

Part One: 'I just couldn't go through another year with Tyrone' - Ronan O'Neill

"In fairness, Feargal and Brian gave me more time to think about it. The boys were back two or three weeks and I just felt I wasn't in the right mind-set to go back.

ADVERTISING

"They checked in with me every so often... Feargal had said reporters were asking about me and a few others. I'm going to be 30 this year and I would doubt I would be taking a year out as a 30-year-old, so I said put it down as retirement."

Before they left Dublin Airport Richie Donnelly, one of O'Neill's All-Ireland minor winning team-mates and close friends, smiled and said to him: "I'm going to twist your arm to come back."

Donnelly's attempts were in vain.

Sitting in a coffee shop in Dungannon last Wednesday, O'Neill says: "I saw the holiday as a final opportunity to say goodbye to the boys and to enjoy it.

"When Mattie got up to speak it was emotional. I wanted to say a lot of things but I couldn't say too much. It was 10 years of my life, a third of my life I've been there...

Hugh Pat also got up and said a few words.

O'Neill adds: "People might read this and say: 'Sure it's only another retirement.' But I'm not going to play with these boys again... but deep down I'm content with my decision..."

***********

SATURDAY, August 6 2016, Tyrone versus Mayo in Croke Park. It's anybody's game.

Ronan O'Neill is standing on the edge of Mayo's square with Brendan Harrison for company, staring into the abyss.

At one point O'Neill reckons there were 70 or 80 metres between him and his nearest Tyrone team-mate.

In the opening seconds of the All-Ireland quarter-final, he spins away from Harrison in front of Hill 16 and puts a low ball across the face of Mayo's goal but the danger is cleared.

In the opening half he gets two sights of Mayo's goalposts but misses. He is lively nonetheless and gets out in front of Harrison a couple of times but has to turn back.

Just before the break Harrison steals the ball off him – the kind of eye-catching dispossession that sends the Mayo supporters into raptures in the nearby Cusack stand.

Advantage Harrison.

Tyrone continue to run the ball from deep. Surrounded by green jerseys, O'Neill is disconnected from the play.

In the 42nd minute, he's replaced by Darren McCurry in a like for like change.

Tyrone had 31 shots, many of them wild hacks from bad positions, and converted 12. They lose by a point.

The main criticism of Tyrone during those years was not positioning more forwards close enough to the opponents' goal and their steadfast refusal to kick the ball in.

Against Mayo, O'Neill was occasionally joined by Connor McAliskey and Peter Harte drifted inside a couple of times, but the support was scant.

"When you're in that tactical bubble you think you can win," O'Neill says.

"Mayo were on the ropes and only beat us by a point. Looking back now and you're playing one up front, it's probably ridiculous to be fair. The way Tyrone played last season you need three, maybe four forwards up there."

Mickey Harte, rightly or wrongly, seemed to lose a bit of faith in the flamboyant Omagh man after their All-Ireland quarter-final exit to Mayo in 2016.

Of course, these were austere times. Gaelic football in the last decade was dour and defensive, much of it unwatchable.

Amid the mass retreats that were taking place, corner-forwards were becoming an endangered species.

These brooding fields were no place for artisans like Ronan O'Neill.

Players like him used to be lauded for their game-winning skills set and panache but they were now being viewed through a more sceptical prism.

On many days in O'Neill's era, forward players were completely swallowed up by uber-defensive, Darwinian systems.

Jim McGuinness's Donegal invented a darker form of Gaelic football; Tyrone reacted – in fact, the entire country reacted – with the Red Hands finally breaking the Tír Chonaill men's provincial domination in 2016.

"I've massive respect for Mickey Harte," says O'Neill, who won three Anglo-Celt Cups.

"He brought me in at 19 years of age, gave me the opportunity to play for Tyrone. Any time I went to Mickey to ask him what I needed to do to get into the team, he would explain to me: 'You are close' or 'You need to do x, y and z...'

"He was fine with me. Mickey had a style and I simply didn't fit into it. There were maybe two forward berths and six of us trying to get into them. You had 'Sparky' [Mark Bradley], McCurry, 'Skeet' [Connor McAliskey], big Sean [Cavanagh] was there, Cathal [McShane] was coming on the scene, Petey Harte was knocking about the forward line, Mattie [Donnelly] too, so there were a number of options there.

"I think we could've been more flexible.

"I never would say to a manager: 'Why am I not playing?' I'd ask: 'What do I need to do to get playing?'

"I went to Brian Dooher last season and said: 'I'd like to play 11.' And Brian said: 'You need to work hard and tackle hard in the middle third.' And I said: 'That's okay. I'll do that.'

Ballymaguigan man Paddy Crozier, who enjoyed two successful stints with St Enda's Omagh in the last decade, baulks at the notion that O'Neill wasn't equipped to play in the modern game.

"The game didn't become too quick for him – it became too defensive," Crozier says.

"Peter Canavan wouldn't have starred in that kind of football. That's what happened to corner-forwards like Ronan O'Neill."

Raymond Munroe, Tyrone's All-Ireland winning manager in 2010, makes an exaggerated point – but a valid one nonetheless.

"Linford Christie is some sprinter – but he wouldn't make a Gaelic footballer. It turns out Linford Christie could've been a good Gaelic footballer," Munroe says.

Tyrone's minor class of 2010 were a slow-burner of a team – good without being exceptional.

They didn't have the marquee names like '08 but once they knocked Antrim out of Ulster at Casement Park, Munroe's youngsters took flight.

"We had big Harry Og [Conlon] and Conan Grugan playing great football in the middle of the pitch," O'Neill says.

"Tommy Canavan at centre half-forward who was a dream for an inside player because all he wanted to do was kick the ball to you.

"I was playing inside with John McCullagh, we played schools football together. We'd Conor Clarke at full-back, Hugh Pat [McGeary] in the corner, Shea McGarrity was the captain, Niall Sludden, Stefan Tierney, Richie Donnelly... it all just clicked."



Ronan O'Neill - a born entertainer
They edged Down in the semi-finals and swept to a comfortable victory over defending Ulster and All-Ireland champions Armagh in the final.

Mayo and Kerry were next to fall on the All-Ireland stage as the young Red Hands set up a final meeting with All-Ireland Cork.

Munroe recalls: "With Cork playing in the senior final and their fans coming in and maybe making a difference, we said our score-line towards the end would have to be far enough ahead of Cork to stop the spectators bringing them back into the game.

"And they very nearly did because we were under severe pressure. Ronan would have been a marked individual because he was very talented.

"Coming through the ranks, he was the nearest thing to Peter Canavan. He was just doing things that were extra-special.

"We talked about the final and we knew Cork were going to double up on him so we asked him to work harder than he ever did before because we wanted Cork to believe that he was our outlet. He never stopped running to the corner in that game. Our outlet was going to be John McCullagh. They were our two-man full-forward line...

"Ronan played it to a tee that day because the Cork sweeper kept going to him. Ronan was prepared to sacrifice his own game for the team - and that in itself tells a lot about someone's character."

***********

IT was his father who put it into his head.

'Why don't you go to a session and play with your left foot only? You know you can play with your right foot, so play with your left...'

He remembers the first few sessions playing solely with his weaker left foot.

"I was absolute muck."

But he persisted. He reckons it took him two full years to perfect his left foot.

It just wasn't those left foot-only training sessions that moulded him into one of the brightest prospects in Tyrone - it was these endless summer days up in Downings playing football with his brothers, "kicking lumps out of each other" and them having to be dragged into the caravan after dark.

At the St Paul's and Kickham's Creggan minor and U21 tournaments, O'Neill had bigger audiences to display his freakish talent.

In those years, the Omagh teenager was virtually unstoppable.

In 2012, Mickey Harte called him into the senior squad.

Wearing a rueful smile, O'Neill says: "I felt I was on a massive rising curve...but injuries are part of football."

A Monday night training session in Cookstown and the Tyrone U21 squad are preparing for their Championship meeting with Donegal.

They were in the early throes of a 10-minute game. Shay McGuigan kicks a high ball into him. He gets the slightest nudge in the back.

"I went high up in the air, landed on one leg and heard a crack. I remember Richie Donnelly wincing. I was down roaring and crying. I knew something was wrong..."

It depends on who you talk to in Tyrone but some say O'Neill never got back to where he was after suffering the cruciate injury. The player himself would beg to differ but shrugs his shoulders.

"I can't change people's opinions of me. All I can do is be myself. If people have that opinion of me, that's okay. I tried my best."

In 2014, he inspired Omagh to their first senior championship in 26 years – producing a moment of magic in the final minutes to grab a goal to sink Carrickmore by a point.

He was shooting the lights out for Tyrone throughout 2016, he won another club championship the following year and hit two brilliant goals to sink Down in the 2017 Ulster final.

But there were other dog day afternoons playing for Tyrone.

He suffered the ignominy of being withdrawn in the 62nd minute after being introduced as a first-half substitute in Tyrone's 2018 Ulster Championship defeat to Monaghan at Healy Park.

He took his gloves off and threw them to the ground in disgust.

In their successful All-Ireland Qualifier run that same summer, he couldn't believe how many substitutions were made before him especially when Tyrone were in dire need of an attacking spark to reel Meath in down in Navan.

"We'd no 'Sparky', Lee Brennan was gone, we'd no forwards. We needed scores and I was on the bench."

O'Neill eventually entered the fray and set up the winning goal for Harry Loughran in extra-time.

By the time of his introduction in the 2018 All-Ireland final, Dublin were already home and hosed and cruising to four-in-a-row.

************

HE stepped away from the Tyrone panel in 2019 but had every intention of going back to give it one last crack.

Then the global pandemic struck with almighty force. You blinked and Tyrone's 2020 season was over and Mickey Harte was gone a few months later.

O'Neill had targeted 2021 as his last hurrah. He would leave no stone unturned in his insatiable pursuit of a regular place on the Tyrone team.

"I trained with Conor Meyler during lockdown because Conor does everything to the letter of the law."

For five months the pair trained like dogs in the dark and in all sorts of weather around Healy Park.

"I was going to be doing the training anyway," Meyler says.

"I need to do that to get the best out of myself. I have to be in better shape than everybody else, whereas Ronan had the footballing talent. He would see a pass or a goal-scoring opportunity that others wouldn't comprehend. That was always his greatest asset, to spot those things.

"I'll never be at that level and most boys won't. That was his special trait – but he also knew he had to get fitter and faster and credit to him, he put the head down and did the work.

"It's funny because I would always have looked up to Ronan at the club and when he wanted to get in shape he came to me."

Meyler adds: "The thing about Ronan was he never shied away from responsibility. He always stepped up and wanted to make a difference in big games. If there was a big moment coming up and you needed a score it was a case of get the ball to Ronan because he could make something happen."

Who will forget the day Cathal McCarron sent in a 'Hail Mary' on top of Carrickmore's Mickey Slane and O'Neill in the closing stages of the 2014 county final and O'Neill winning it before rounding Big 'Oz' McCallan and hammering the ball into the net to win the cup for Omagh for the first time in 26 years.

There were those endless days in Downings playing until dusk, his mother urging him: 'Don't pass the ball Ronan – put it over the bar'.

Growing up, he was St Enda's dream giver. Pure joy on a field. Absolutely everything about him was audacious.

'Just go out and play, Ronan.'

And he'd eye-ball the hard yards put in front of him.

Raymond Munroe will always remember his selfless running in the 2010 All-Ireland minor final that tripped up Cork.

For the Red Hands, a thousand times over.

"Ronan O'Neill was a team player," Paddy Crozier says. "Was there any particular skill he was good at? There was no skill he wasn't good at."

The pride he felt at being called up to the Tyrone seniors in 2012. And the agony of the cruciate.

Battling his way back. In the team - and out again. Snakes and ladders.

For him, the bench was death by a thousand cuts.

That dummy hop in Celtic Park. Lobbing Down's Mickey Cunningham in sunny Clones and feeling the weight of the Anglo-Celt above his head.

"The best thing about playing football and winning is the 30 minutes after the final whistle," he says.

"You'd love to bottle that feeling. If you offered me a million pound, I wouldn't sell it."

Throwing the gloves off in disgust in 2018, feeling like the fall guy. Leaving Tyrone and coming back.

Running in the snow with Meyler and turning up to training in his Tuxedo. Pushing. Always pushing.

The feeling of devastation of missing out on the All-Ireland final squad. And still being able to tip his hat to "Feargal and Brian".

Holding back the tears in Orlando when Mattie Donnelly got up to speak.

Ten years gone in a blink of an eye. 

No more bus trips, no more going to the well with the Tyrone boys, no more post-match DJ-ing and no more dance-offs with McCurry.

This is what it was like living in the Tyrone bubble.

Now it's all over, the Tyrone camp is a little quieter without him.

But Tyrone people will never forget Ronan O'Neill and the moments of sheer joy he was only too happy to share.

He was their born entertainer...

Can anyone put in part 2 of the O'Neill interview

Or go out and buy the paper you stingey......