Harte denies possible Cavanagh rift

Tyrone manager Mickey Harte has rubbished suggestions that a rift could develop between him and Sean Cavanagh following the publishing of extracts from his book in recent days.

Harte revealed that star forward Cavanagh was not selected to play the All-Ireland quarter-final against Cork because of a combination of illness, tiredness and injury.

However, in an interview in today's Irish Independent, Harte insists there will be no tension between the two, although he has not spoken to the Moy clubman since.

Harte, speaking at an Ulster Bank function to celebrate the achievement of two of their employees - Darran O'Sullivan and Michael Fennelly - in captaining Kerry and Kilkenny to senior All-Ireland success, said: 'The facts of the matter are Sean didn't play for us against Cork.

'He wasn't feeling the greatest on that weekend, and I'm interpreting that there was a number of circumstances that maybe contributed to that for him. But for somebody to suggest then that I am casting aspersions on what Sean is about would be grossly unfair.

'I would never, ever doubt his commitment to Tyrone or his quality as a player. I would say Sean is wise enough to understand that headlines can be made, but I think he should know me well enough now to know what I think of him.

'He was very busy. He's got a busy profession, and he's getting married this year. Sometimes that makes people busy too. And he had commitments with the GPA as well, as secretary, which I'm sure took his attention. You just can't be in that role and not have things that you have to be about as well.'

Harte added: 'Indeed he had an injury this year as well, which was niggling at him, that people never really knew about. Obviously he had an operation to correct that since.

'So when you add all these things up, and obviously he wasn't feeling the best that night before the game, I would say a combination of all those things hasn't helped him to be the player that he always is on that particular day.'