McElholm '100% committed' to Tyrone U20s
Paul Devlin insists Loughmacrory talent Eoin McElholm is "100% committed" to the Tyrone under-20 squad but his non-involvement in Wednesday's U20 win over Antrim potentially keeps the door open to him featuring in Sunday's Ulster SFC game against Cavan in Omagh.McElholm missed the defending All-Ireland U20 champions' Ulster contest against Donegal last week as he travelled to Portugal with the Tyrone seniors for a pre-championship training camp. He was a late inclusion on the bench for Wednesday night's win over Antrim but didn't come on and was scarcely needed as the Red Hands earned a dominant 2-24 to 0-10 win in Dungannon."Eoin will be ready to go when we need him. We just felt tonight there was plenty of time to give other fellows game time," said Devlin after his side's 20-point victory at O'Neill Park."A few rumours going around, papers and stuff, that Eoin's committed to the seniors but Eoin is committed to ourselves 100%. "He was away on that training camp last week. [And] You give an opportunity to another lad last week to see where he is."The Tyrone U20s will take on Armagh in a straight knockout Ulster quarter-final next Wednesday in Dungannon after completing their group matches in the competitionDevlin's Tyrone U20s have won two of the last three All-Ireland titles with McElholm joining the likes of Ruairi Canavan, Seanie O'Donnell, Niall Devlin and Liam Gray in making the transition into the senior panel."It's the desire they have. They want to push on into senior football. It's a big commitment and lifestyle and everything and it's great to see them pushing on at that level," added Devlin."It takes a bit of time to bed in. The defenders they come up against have a lot more physicality so you have to be patient with lads like that coming through."Great talents that they are, if we force them too much, they could be sitting on the sideline and not getting much football out of them. It's worked well over the last couple of years and long may it continue."Cavan took Tyrone to extra-time in the Ulster SFC at Breffni Park last year and Devlin is expecting the seniors to have a tough battle again, with Red Hand county great Stephen O'Neill also part of Raymond Galligan's management team."We know the coach that Stevie is, a fantastic coach. We had him a couple of times at the under-20s helping out."It'll be a tough game and one Tyrone will be wary of but if they get everything right and all their players available they'll be in a good place."
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