‘It made my blood boil’ - Shay McGuigan responds to comments from Tyrone’s Mickey Harte

here was an exodus of disgruntled players following Tyrone’s relegation to Division Two in May including McGuigan, Patrick McNeice, Dwayne Quinn, Emmett McKenna and PJ Lavery.

Having cut former minor star Kyle Coney in January as well, Harte brought in a number of under-21 players and they ended up reaching an All-Ireland semi-final where they were narrowly beaten by Kerry.

Speaking about the players who left, Harte told the Irish Daily Star: “There is something about the people who stay and bide their time and have the patience,”

“They were probably the people who were going to serve you best in the long run anyway.

“The people who feel they’re not getting as much game time as they want, they tend to be a bit of drain on the energy of the group, because they feel they should be getting more game time.”

McGuigan, younger brother of All-Ireland winner Brian, released a statement on Twitter refuting what Harte had said.

The statement reads: “Last week Mickey Harte made a statement about the players who decided to leave the Tyrone panel in 2015. I was one of them.

“He went to say ‘they were a drain on the energy in the panel’.

“He also stated that men should just hang around and when their chance comes then they should take it.

“I hung on and hung on fully fit and injury free all year, done all the per-season training from November and through the cold winter nights and to sit there seeing the same men week in and week out get their chance and see a player come back into the squad one week before the last league game of 2015 and get on before me just made my decision a whole lot easier.

“When I seen the article last week, it made my blood boil and has annoyed me since and that’s why I’m posting this now because i’m not going to sit about and say nothing and let him give his view.

“I busted my ball every week at training, even when I didn’t get on I didn’t sit with a face on me nor did I huff and any Tyrone player could tell you that.”