TYRONE: Stephen O'Neill has confirmed he will play no part in the 2008 National Football League, even if Tyrone reach the latter stages.

The double All-Ireland winner and former Footballer of the Year is due to undergo surgery next week on a knee problem that blighted his season and restricted him to a handful of brief substitute appearances in this year's championship.

He will have an operation to cure a tendonitis condition at the Ulster Independent Clinic in Belfast next Thursday.

"I'll definitely miss the league," said O'Neill, who has not played since the All-Ireland quarter-final defeat to Meath last August, leaving his club Clan na nGael to fight relegation without two leading players, with Brian Dooher also injured. "I want to get the injury right and get back playing."

O'Neill admitted he may have been reckless to try to play through the pain barrier and risk aggravating the injury during Tyrone's championship.

"Maybe it was unwise, but when you're in the middle of the championship, you want to be playing."

He's glad to see the back of what has been a frustrating season of injury, not just for himself, but for a number of Tyrone's players, including Dooher, Brian McGuigan and Mickey McGee.

"The season was a complete disaster in that way, and when you can't get fit, it's a long struggle through the year."

WICKLOW: A lobby campaign is to be launched by Wicklow to reverse the decision at national level this year to exclude all eight Division Four league teams from participating in the All-Ireland qualifiers.

The Division Four teams were given the Tommy Murphy Cup as an appeasement instead.

While Wicklow went on to win the Tommy Murphy Cup, the county has been in the vanguard of opposition to their exclusion from the qualifiers.

A motion to change the status quo back to the previous position where all teams are eligible to take part in the qualifiers will be tabled before the county convention in December.