The perennial county/ college New Year Tug 'o War is again likely to impact on Tyrone manager Mickey Harte's stated intentions to run an eye over some new faces in the forthcoming Barrett Sports Lighting Dr McKenna Cup.
Tyrone have been paired with defending champions Donegal, as well as Cavan and St Mary's in Group B for the January competition.
The games should have provided Mickey Harte and his backroom team with an ideal opportunity to run the rule over the burgeoning young crop of talent at their disposal, with the management keen to inject fresh blood into the county set-up.
However the hopes of giving youth its fling has been hit by a college-versus-county dilemma.
The Tyrone manager won't be able to select his squad for the pre-season competition until he finds out what players will be available to him, and he won't know that until the three universities, who also take part in the competition, name their squads.
The universities - Queen's, UUJ and St. Mary's - have first call on players and that is likely to deprive Harte of some of the exciting young talents he wants to call up.
"Until we see the college lists, we don't know exactly whether we will have to leave some out or count some in.
"There may be some we would want that they have included, so until we see their list, we can't exactly define what our preference is. When we see that, we'll see if there's some overlap and that would need to happen before we definitely put ours down on paper."
Harte is keen to give a number of last year's All-Ireland minor winning team their first taste of senior inter-county action, but their involvement with college sides has thrown those plans up in the air.
The Ballygawley man also ruled out any involvement in the McKenna Cup for members of the Fr Rock's, Cookstown team that won the Ulster IFC title on Sunday as their preparations for the All-Ireland semi-final in January will coincide with the competition.
In the past the Tyrone boss has had a very public spat with the Ulster Council over its insistence that the three Colleges teams have priority for eligible players.
While success in the Dr McKenna Cup isn't top of the list of priorities for Tyrone, they will use it as a way of getting into the swing of things ahead of the National League.
Clearer targets will be set by Harte and his backroom team as they take stock following last August's painful All-Ireland semi-final reversal to Cork. The most pressing concern is to ensure that things are right for the much bigger challenges which lie ahead. As a result, the McKenna Cup will be used as a chance to get players back into the swing of things competitively with a view to reaching the peak later in the campaign when the main business of the season reaches its climax.However Harte generally wants to win every competition and Tyrone will once again be formidable opponents in the New Year subsidiary provincial competition.
