Mattie Donnelly has committed to Tyrone for 2026, but doubts remain over the future of Peter Harte.
Both former All-Stars and All-Ireland winners are now 35, and manager Malachy O’Rourke said he would love to have both in his squad.
“That’s the burning question. Mattie is back, he has been training with us. Petey hasn’t come back yet, he’ll be able to answer that question himself,” he said.
“It might be a wee bit more difficult for Petery coming back this year, but the door will always be open for someone like Petey, who has done so much for the county over the years, and still is doing it, and is such a role model.
“He’s such an experienced player to have, we would love to have him back, but that will become clear over the next couple of weeks.”
Chris Lawn, an All-Ireland winner in 2003, has left the backroom team due to other commitments.
“Unfortunately Chris is not able to commit this year, and Chris will be a loss, because he’s a great character with great experience as well,” said O’Rourke.
“We haven’t replaced hm yet, but it’s a case of not rushing in and replacing hum for the sake of it.
“We’ll take our time and see if there’s something there and it its not that’s okay.”
O’Rourke has brought in around 15 new players into his squad, all of whom impressed during the club championship.
Most of whom will get a chance to show the manager what they’re capable of at inter-county level during the Dr McKenna Cup.
“We did get a good look at all the players in championship football.
“You can look at players in training, but when you see them in the white heat of championship football, and great thing about Tyrone is that the championships are so competitive.
“If you have somebody who is playing well there, is able to stand up when the pressure is greatest, well then you know that they’re ready for inter-county football.
“We saw an awful lot of championship football, there were very few games we missed out on, and we were able to base our panel around that.
“We brought about 14 or 15 new fellows into the panel, we obviously have the boys from last year as well, so the boys are all working away, training hard, and there’s a good energy about the group.
“After the McKenna Cup, we’ll have to cut it then for the National League, which is going to be tough as well, because the boys are showing good commitment.
“But that’s all part of the process. Hopefully there’ll be nobody lost to it, because we have the feeder squad going from last year, which was really good, because five or six of the lads who were on that feeder squad have now graduated through to the senior squad.
“The same process will happen this year, so there will be nobody lost in the system if they have that desire to keep working away and keep developing, it will be there for them, it will stand to them and stand for Tyrine as a county.”
