Tyrone manager Mickey Harte believes Sean Cavanagh decided to commit to the 2016 campaign because he believes the Red Hand County can win some major silverware again.

The 33-year-old has been a fulcrum of the Tyrone team for the entirety of Harte’s managerial reign which began in late 2002. Together they’ve helped Tyrone win three All-Irelands, four Ulster Championships, and one National League, but none of those achievements were registered in the last five seasons.

Tyrone have gone through a period of transition in that time and Cavanagh is now one of just three survivors in the panel from the team that won the 2008 All-Ireland Final along with the McMahon brothers Joe and Justin. Cavanagh may no longer be at the peak of his powers, but Harte knows his captain’s continued commitment is crucial to the Tyrone cause.

“It was vital, for the younger players, even to be in the same dressing room, they are in awe of him, what he brings, his presence,” says Harte. “He doesn’t have the legs of 12 years ago, but still has a compelling presence on the field.

“He never doubted he’d come back, he saw the potential there, I think if he thought the team was in decline I doubt he would have put himself through the hardship, but I think he saw something worth coming to, and I hope that his vision is good.”

Harte has been around this game too long to make lofty promises in April, but it is clear he is just as optimistic as Cavanagh that the good days may be about to roll again for Tyrone football.

The graduates from the 2008 and 2010 All-Ireland winning minor teams are in their prime now, and a new generation that helped Tyrone to last year’s All-Ireland U-21 title have given the panel some added zest. When you combine all of those factors together, it looks as though Tyrone are finally getting back to the sort of strength in depth they last enjoyed when they won the 2008 All-Ireland title.

“Possibly it’s heading that way, but that’s to be confirmed yet,” cautions Harte. “It looks like it has that potential to be as strong, but you have to go out and do that on important days. Until the season goes on a bit and we see these players who aren’t in the first 15 coming in on any given day and establishing themselves and making a difference, then you could conclude what you’re suggesting. It’s a potential thing at the minute. You couldn’t have put the reality stamp on that just yet.”

But the potential alone is enough to excite the Tyrone manager. When he looks at the leading lights of the most recent generation of footballers to emerge in the county, he recognises the same sort of blue-chip quality that won Tyrone three All-Ireland in the noughties.

“The emergence of people like Rory Brennan, Mark Bradley, Conor Meyler, these are the kind of people who have the quality to make a difference on a senior inter-county team,” he admits. “Whereas before, you might have had people who could come in and play some role, but those are players who definitely are starting material in the not-too-distant future.

“When they fill out enough to play at this level, to make the transition from underage to adult football. When they do that, they set the tone for other players, that this is what it takes to be part of this team, to start, and not just be a player who’s biding his time to get a few minutes. The likes of the Mattie Donnellys and Petie Harte and Ronan McNabb before he got injured, off the minors in ’08, have very much matured into team leaders.

“Tiernan McCann and people like that have come along a little bit behind them. There’s a good bunch of players across various age groups. You still have Sean Cavanagh, the senior citizen of all, and it’s very important that he’s there too.

“There’s a lot of players at various stages of their development and it’s coming together quite well.  But it’s also results that talk. Potential’s potential, but results say you are fulfilling your potential. There’s lots of things to be answered yet. We’re maybe sitting on the cusp of something decent, but one or two games can turn that on its head.”

Harte believes he is learning “all the time, all the time” and is a more complete manager now than he was when he led Tyrone to those three All-Ireland titles. He is the longest serving inter-county football manager in the country by some stretch, and he has pushed himself to move with the times rather than keep blind faith in the processes that worked for him in in the past.

“I’m obviously a lot more experienced,” he says. “On reflection, I made plenty of mistakes when we were winning. They weren’t highlighted as much, but when you’re not winning, the mistakes are highlight, by forensic scientists. I feel I’m a wiser manager now, even though I mightn’t have as many All-Irelands as I had then. But I want to put that learning into practice, to be in a better place.

“There is no point in doing the things you used to do and expect to get the same results. You're going to get the same results if you keep doing the same things. So I have to be thinking differently. I have to open my mind to new possibilities. I have to look at individual players and deal with them. There are a load of new people in now.

“For a long time I was dealing with people that I had from minors and U-21. Now the big majority of the team I never had right through the underage structures so I have to build new relationships with them, learn more about them, learn more about myself as I go along. It is a constant process of trying to add value to what you are about as an individual.”

He has tried to add value to the collective by increasing the expertise in his own backroom team. Tyrone struggled physically when they were beaten by a bigger, stronger Armagh team in the 2014 All-Ireland qualifers, so the following season former Cavan strength and conditioning coach Peter Donnelly was recruited. He’s highly regarded by the Tyrone players, and Harte is happy to give him a lot of credit for Tyrone’s much improved showing in last year’s Championship.

“Peter’s been very important,” says Harte. “I’m not so sure it’s all about the strength coming on all of a sudden though. That develops over years. When people do something over a prolonged period of time, they get physically stronger anyway. The good thing is that he’s not only a strength and conditioning coach, but he’s a Gaelic football strength and conditioning coach. His mindset is ‘I’m a Gaelic footballer first of all, and I know what Gaelic footballers need to develop into being the best they can be’.

“That’s the real secret of Peter Donnelly, he’s got the head for the game, he’s played it at a high level and created his training programme to meet the demands being made of football players today. That’s the nice marriage we have in terms of his strength and conditioning ethos, and it’s definitely been good for them. These things take time. Young players don’t bulk up all of a sudden. It might take one year for some, two years for others, three years for others, to get to the level they need to be at to withstand the intensity of the physical nature of today’s game.”

Sunday’s National Football League Final against Cavan will give us a good idea about where exactly Tyrone are right now and just how much potential they have for further improvement. Injuries to key players like Niall Morgan (broken hand), Peter Harte (AC joint), and Darren McCurry (ankle) and the continued absence of Ronan McNabb as he works his way back from a torn cruciate will hold the team back in the short to medium term.

But if they have a fully fit panel for the Championship then the rest of the country might find out why Sean Cavanagh is confident 2016 could be a big year for the Red Hand County.