Tony Donnelly believes Mickey Harte is still the man to lead Tyrone football forward.

The Augher native and clubmate Fergal McCann both departed the Red Hands backroom team this week but Donnelly is in no doubt that Harte remains the best man to bring back the glory days:

"If anybody is capable of doing it, it's going to be Mickey," he says in The Irish News. "He has the experience, he has the track record and he has also got the motivation and the desire to do it.

"He'll not be found wanting in any of those areas. You can't set targets or put time limits on when Tyrone will start winning trophies again, but the right man is there at the helm, no doubt."

Elaborating on his decision to step down from the role of assistant manager - a position he'd held since 2005 - Donnelly adds:

"It was a tough decision. There were a few weeks of deliberation about it and we met with Mickey and informed him of our decision.

"He understood. He talked to us about it but he wasn't going to stand in our way. Maybe Mickey was somewhat reluctant, but still he could see that we wanted to step aside and he accepted it and let things go on from there." Tweet

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