Sean Cavanagh believes there’s a resilience in the Tyrone DNA that allows them to bounce back quickly.
In recent weeks there have been mixed fortunes for the county with the senior team crashing out of the Ulster Championship, before the Under-20s took the All-Ireland title last weekend.
The Moy clubman was part of the All-Ireland winning minor team in 2001 that paved the way for Sam Maguire glory in 2003, 2005 and 2008 and he believes there’s a toughness within every Tyrone team.
Read more: Peter Canavan says Tyrone should wait before calling up U20 stars to senior side
“I would say there’s a sense of resilience — that’s the mentality of many of the Tyrone footballers. We’re good at the whole siege thing,” said Cavanagh.
“I’d say we are mentality tough. We were brilliant at that as a county, it’s almost part of our culture and DNA.
“If the going gets tough and someone throws something at you, we’ll respond that bit harder and it will push us on.”
Cavanagh believes some of this resilience stems from a past rooted in The Troubles and he recalled some of his own memories from that time on Electric Ireland’s GAA Minor Moments podcast.
“I was aware of it without being spooked by it,” he said. “I remember the army guys lying in ditches and fields around home. The ball would go into a ditch and you’d see some guy popping up with a machine gun and firing the ball back to you.
“You look back now and think that was a mad period in life, but at the same time, because you were living it, it didn’t seem that mad.
“We were young and all you really cared about was playing sport.”
He added: “But it never held us back. It never held me back in any way.”
Cavanagh claimed an All-Ireland minor football title in 2001 as well as two Ulster minor titles during his career at this grade.
The Red Hand native has won every piece of silverware in the inter-county game and he’s happy that he left it all out on the pitch.
“Most of my medals I have claimed are in my parents’ house you wouldn’t see any pictures, medals or trophies in my house,” he said.
“There’s nothing more that I could given to the sport but there’s real sense of peace knowing I couldn’t have given any more to the game.”
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