TWO DOWN AS DONEGAL HIT THE HOT SPOT
There was a time when comprehensive victories over Down and Cork, even at the outset of a National League campaign, would have been greeted with loud acclaim amongst the Donegal faithful. A time in both recent and distant pasts when both these county teams would have been acknowledged as kingpins of the game and their respective scalps of huge significance in determining where you were at as a team.
Well, they may not be the teams of old but to claim successes particularly against a Cork team who can still pose a threat to any other side in the country, cannot be underestimated.
by Paddy Walsh, Donegal’s leading sports columnist
Forty-four points for and seventeen against in those two opening fixtures – that’s an impressive scoring ratio for a team that struggled at times to find the target in their McKenna Cup outings. Right from Patrick McBrearty’s early point, Donegal looked on solid ground – even if Fr. Tierney Park doesn’t look quite as solid and is hardly the most appropriate venue for the inter-county game.
A patient build-up produced the neatest of finishes from Martin O’Reilly to edge the home side into a comfortable six point cushion inside the first quarter of an hour and, sandwiched outside a comeback of sorts from Peadar Healy’s team, there was more to come.
The hosts were ten points clear when they conjured up the score of the game – Michael Murphy’s pinpoint crossfield pass into space on the right inspiring the move that involved the McHughs, Eoin and Ryan, and the ever impressive, Neil McGee, to set up Odhran MacNiallais to craft a goal of the utmost quality.
Cork responded but only in patches and three late points hardly made the long journey home one of any great cheer. They have even a longer way to go if they are to become the force of former days but for Donegal things are decidedly taking shape ahead of much more sterner tests.
It’s always difficult to tell when it comes to the Allianz National League just how good or bad a team is and absolutely nothing should be read into the fact that two of the fancied Championships teams, Kerry and Mayo, fill two of the three bottom slots in Division 1 without a point between them.
It can equally be applied to the teams leading the chase at the top but this still represents a sparkling start for Rory Gallagher’s battlers who head off to Tenerife for some warm weather training in the hottest of form.
PASSING OF A LEGEND
Floral tributes which represent the two clubs which Mark Farren played for with so much distinction Derry City FC and Glenavon FC.
Every tribute paid to Mark Farren without exception acknowledged not just his footballing abilities but his humane qualities and his courageous battle against the cancer that was to eventually claim him long before his time.
A decent human being was a description coined more than once not least by the likes of Gary Lineker who tweeted a message of sympathy to the family of the former Derry City striker – one of literally hundreds that are still surfacing on social media and other outlets.
“This is such a sad day, there’s not a lot you can say,” said Mark’s former team-mate and close friend, Kevin McHugh who had led a couple of fund-raising campaigns to enable the player to receive the treatment he so urgently required.
The passing of a man who plied his trade in the League of Ireland and the Irish League doesn’t often merit the headlines or indeed the soundings of genuine testimonials. But this was more than a loss to the game of soccer even if it is the footballing family who will grieve him to a significant degree.
“Devastated at the passing of not only a great player but an even better man,” declared ex-Derry City winger and current Republic of Ireland international, James McClean. Even the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, himself a keen follower of the domestic game, was quick to add his voice to the tributes. “Those of us who attended the League of Ireland and had the pleasure of seeing his many appearances will recall his great skill and sportsmanship,” said the President.
There’s talk of a stand being named in the player’s honour at the rebuilt Brandywell – a fitting accolade indeed if it comes to pass for Derry City’s record goalscorer.
The first match of any season at Finn Park is invariably marked with a minute’s silence for those associated with Harps who have gone to meet their Maker during the close season.
Perhaps, a round of applause at the Harps/Derry game on March 4th would represent the warmest and most apt of gestures for one of the North-West’s brightest sporting stars who graced the ground in his day, though sadly for those of us who would have revelled seeing him on a regular basis in the blue and white, it was mostly in the colours of Harps’ fiercest rivals.
Even then we still viewed him as something of a hero.
To Mark’s wife, Terri Louise and his family and the community of Greencastle where he was brought up and to the clubs of Derry City and Glenavon, this column can only extend sincerest sympathy on the passing of a local legend and true gentleman.
RAPHOE WONDERS
They are probably our most under-rated sports stars, no doubt due to the significant fact that badminton ranks the lowest of the low in televised broadcasting schedules, but we should once again be hailing the heroics of the phenomenon known as the Magee family.
Ten years on after claiming her first national singles title, Chloe Magee kept her unbroken sequence going with another milestone success at the senior championships in Dublin at the weekend.
But the Magees rarely depart from these events with just the one trophy – Chloe partnering brother, Sam, to success in the Mixed Doubles before the latter twinned up with Joshua Magee to take the Men’s Doubles title.
Raphoe wasn’t standing at the back of the queue when they were handing out the requirements needed for success at the highest levels of the game – and you don’t get higher than the Olympic Games where Chloe in particular has flown the Irish flag with honour and no little achievement.
COOL RUNNINGS
When they talk about a heat at the Meadowbank Sports Arena in Magherafelt they don’t mean it literally – the only indoor venue on this island where the attendance also attempts to engage in the warm-ups.
But there was nevertheless some hot competition there at the weekend in the form of the Northern Ireland and Ulster Age Group – that’s young ones to you and me – track and field championships.
“It’s Massive…it’s Magnificent…it’s Major….and it’s Made in Magherafelt”, the publicity blurb trumpets the venue. And it is indeed all those things though not all who compete in it were, or are, made in the County Derry town.
Donegal athletes were more than prominent in the medals haul at the end of the two-day competition and in reaching finals and achieving personal goals.
But, as I said to a couple of the young participating athletes on Saturday when family and club reasons found me there, even those who didn’t manage to reach their target, were still able to return to respective classrooms on Monday morning and say they had competed in the Ulster Championships and what did you do over the weekend!
Acknowledgements to all who took part particularly those who travelled over the Glenshane Pass from this neck of the woods, including Finn Valley A.C., Letterkenny A.C., Lifford A.C., Lifford/Strabane A.C., Inishowen A.C., Rosses A.C., Cranford A.C., and Tir Chonaill A.C. And not forgetting their coaches and mentors who helped them get there in the first place.
FLAT OUT
One man who got there eventually on Saturday was Lifford’s Mr. Athletics, Brendan O’Donnell, who was coasting along nicely on the way to a P.B. when disaster struck – a tyre as flat as yesterday’s pancakes forcing him to pull in to the side of the road a good half hour away from Magherafelt and with his two sons on board.
Thankfully, they were able to secure aid and a lift from none other than the chairman of Letterkenny A.C., Michael Galvin, and his family who were also destined for the indoor championships.
LEVEL PLAYING FIELD?
CROKE PARK
Fresh from the announcement that the great Bruce Springsteen will become the first big name – before Donegal – to perform at Croke Park this year pouring large amounts into the coffers of the G.A.A. in the process, there’s the story of a club in Longford who have been fined 2,000 euro for permitting their ground to be utilised for a soccer school.
Dromard G.A.A. had allowed former Liverpool defender, Jamie Carragher, to host his school on the pitch last summer. Result? Apart from 200 local kids enjoying the experience, that fine for the club for permitting the playing of sports not under the G.A.A. umbrella on their property.
Something seriously wrong somewhere when Croke Park will be heaving on May 27th (and there’s still the possibility of a couple of more dates over that weekend) with Springsteen fans – and no doubt a select few freebies for officials and their families – and a club in Longford must fork out a couple of thousand euro they can ill afford because of an archaic ruling.
SONIA’S GOLD?
She’s one of our greatest – the greatest? – sporting personalities of all time so the news that Sonia O’Sullivan may yet claim the gold medal that many highly suspicious folk believed should have been hers in the first place were it not for a trio of Chinese athletes to come out of nowhere and deprive her of any medal placing in the World Championships of 1993, comes as mighty exoneration for both her and those who questioned the sudden emergence of these middle distance runners from the Orient .
It won’t quite be the same twenty-three years on but a gold is still a gold in anyone’s language. Even Chinese.
TWO BEAUTIES
A couple of weeks back this column referenced Seamus Coleman’s failure to find the net this season after having been one of the highest scoring defenders in the English Premiership.
Well, cometh the child, cometh the man. The Killybegs ace and his wife, Rachel Cunningham, were celebrating the birth of new baby girl, Lilly, at the weekend and had further cause for joy when Coleman popped up with a superb diving header at the Britannia Stadium on Saturday to score his first of the campaign for Everton.
Nice tribute from the management and staff at the Bayview Hotel and Leisure Centre in Killybegs in a public notice to the happy couple – more so for the birth than for the goal though I’m pretty sure they were pleased with that baby too!
EVENS AND ODDS
Even a draw is still a mighty result against the Welsh if only to prevent us having to see a sneering Warren Gatland doing a post match interview.
A half decent start to the Six Nations Championships then but I, for one, still won’t be troubling any bookies for the odds on us lifting our third title in a row.
WARMING UP
What with the Donegal squad heading to Tenerife for some warm weather training and Letterkenny’s Sean McFadden bringing a bunch of athletes to Portugal for something similar, I asked the editor what where the chances of him sending me on some warm weather coaching for columnists.
And he promptly told me I could go somewhere very hot indeed.
