Tyrone boss Malachy O'Rourke is hopeful Darragh Canavan will be fit for the Ulster SFC semi-final shodwown against Armagh in a fortnight's time.
The star forward missed Sunday's clash with Cavan at O'Neill's Healy Park, where the hosts dug out a 1-24 to 0-20 victory.
"He just picked up a wee injury last week, it's a leg unjury," O'Rourke told RTÉ Sport.
"We wanted to give him as much time as possible to be ready for today. Then the medical people just advised us that it wasn't the right thing to do to risk him today so that's why we made the call. It's only a two-week turnaround to the next game, we'll give him as much treatement as he needs and hopefully get him back on the field before that but we'll just have to wait and see."
O'Rourke praised his players' efforts on Sunday but did not shy away from the weaker elements of their performance, admitting his side have work to do if they want to upset the reigning All-Ireland champions. "
"Some of our play was very good," he said. "We went forward with real intent at times. I thought the first ten minutes we weren't great. After that I thought we started to get a handle on the kick-outs, particularly the Cavan kick-outs and we got a lot of scores from that.
"Second half again, we started off fairly well but we got sloppy towards the end and we allowed Cavan back into the game. So there's a lot of areas we need to work on and we know the next day out we're going to be playing the All-Ireland champions, we've a big task in front of us.
"We're pelased with the overall work rate of the boys, pleased with a lot of aspects of the game but we know we've an awful lot to improve and we've a short time to do it."
Malachy O'Rourke said Tyrone attacked with real intent in their victory over Cavan in the Ulster Football Championship.
— The Sunday Game (@TheSundayGame) April 13, 2025
He also revealed Darragh Canavan could be back for their next game. pic.twitter.com/eYIeMsANK4
Darren McCurry, the player of the match against Cavan, concurred with his manager, but insisted O'Rourke is drilling the right principles into the group to help them have a big summer.
"Malachy has insitlled in us this number of weeks and months that it's all about the team, it's all about that hard work," he said.
"It doesn't matter who scores as long as the team gets a result at the end of the day.
"Everybody's fighting for a jersey, that's the most important thing. With the really good Tyrone teams throughout the years I think it's been really important to have that competitveness in the changing room.
"Us forwards all have a good relationship there. It was unfortunate to lose Darragh this week, he's been playing unbelievable football this last number of months, but again, Malachy has instilled it in us, it's just next man up. Cathal (McShane) and Ruairí (Canavan) slotted in there and done a great job.
"No individuals win games. It's all about the team, and that's the ethos that we have throughout the year and that we'll continue to push on."
Meanwhile Cavan manager Raymond Galligan was left to rue a sloppy opening half that ultimately cost his team dear.
"We just left ourselves too much to do the first half," he said.
"We didn't get out of the blocks. We'd opportunities to try and stay in the game but we realy struggled on our kick-out and I think that's probably where Tyrone got most joy in the first half.
"The boys are hurting. We know we didn't show our best selves there today. It's important now we dust ourselevs down. Hopefully we can show a better account of ourselves in the All-Ireland series."
