Yesterday was the 25th anniversary of the death of Christy Ring. Commemorative tributes paid in recent days bore witness to his legendary status and provide a poignant context for the shattering news of Cormac McAnallen's passing.

Although Ring died prematurely he had an intercounty career of over two decades' duration at the end of which his claim to be the greatest hurler of all time was firmly established. Cormac McAnallen was only coming into the prime of a career that would surely have seen him establish a monumental playing reputation.

His recent appointment as captain put him in line to complete the treble of leading Tyrone to minor, under-21 and senior All-Ireland victories. The appointment also confirmed what everyone knew. With Peter Canavan's career edging into the twilight, his successor was the obvious standard bearer for the next generation.

That generation has already borne extremes of experience mercifully unknown to most of their age.

The impact of Paul McGirr's death after an accidental collision on the playing field drove the team from their first summer as minors in 1997. By the build-up to last year's All-Ireland senior final the name of their deceased team-mate was still being invoked by the players and management.

Even in the summer of 1998, when they delivered on their personal undertakings to Paul's memory and won the All-Ireland minor title, leaving the number 12 jersey unfilled, Tyrone minors and the county at large had to cope with the atrocity of the Omagh bombing.

One of the first visitors to their triumphant dressing-room that September was county referee Kevin Skelton, who lost family on the day of the atrocity.

It is horribly ironic that Gaelic games, which played an acknowledged role in the spiralling confidence of northern nationalists, have been associated with such sorrow in Tyrone.

That two members of that promising cohort of seven years ago should now be dead must be nearly insupportable for the county.

Cormac McAnallen was one of those individuals whose arrival was fully anticipated and whose combination of skill, serious intent and intelligence represents ideal material for management at any level. Known as a quiz buff, he'd already appeared on television's Blackboard Jungle for his school, St Patrick's Armagh, and by the time he won his minor medal was already - and unusually for the age group - an undergraduate, in Queen's, Belfast.

There are extrovert players and quiet players. Cormac was one of the latter but not in an affected, sullen fashion. He was friendly and sharp in conversation and popular, even if one International Rules team-mate once mournfully related how it was nearly impossible to get him to take a drink.

Dave Billings, who worked with the player when he did his H Dip in UCD, made the point that for all the quiet demeanour, Cormac McAnallen had the quality of presence. When he walked into a noisy room, everyone noticed him, and when in the babble of the dressing-room he spoke, everyone listened.

He was an ideal international and represented Ireland in three Test series against Australia, a sequence that would probably have extended as long as he wanted it to.

His athleticism and footballing sense made him comfortable playing International Rules and his courtesy and good sense marked him as a perfect ambassador.

Yesterday's sad events recall the passing just over 51 years ago of a previous football captain from Ulster. John Joe O'Reilly, who captained Cavan in the Polo Grounds final of 1947 and again in 1948, died of influenza within months of winning a third medal in 1952.

There is something unfathomable about the death of sportspeople. Their vigour, fitness and sense of physical omnipotence give an aura of invulnerability and we are all traumatised by its violation.

Cormac McAnallen only scratched the surface of his potential. His switch to full back was the final piece in Mickey Harte's All-Ireland jigsaw and the confidence he instilled gave the whole defence coherence and force. But there would have been so much more for him to do.

Instead he will be forever young with a bright and hopeful face to the great, unfulfilled future stretching eternally before him.