DONEGAL TO OVERCOME REBELS BUT FORWARD THINKING NEEDED:
Here’s the scenario optimistic Donegal fans will envisage in their mind’s eye as they trod up Jones Road on Saturday. Michael Murphy and Paddy McBrearty lining out in full forward roles and Ryan McHugh, Odhran MacNiallais, Karl Lacey and Frankie McGlynn supplying telling ball and providing additional scoring options. And Donegal football back in the big time and with admiring glances from pundits and supporters alike. And Cork suffering their second defeat of the day against Tir Chonaill opposition.
That, as I say, is the optimistic view. There are, of course, counter opinions out there and these would appear to be growing in number even among true Gaels in our midst.
Take for instance this comment posted on the R.T.E. website from a follower who signs himself cynically as ‘Rory Losing Matches’:
“As a Donegal man, I hope Cork beat us to put us out of our misery and that Declan Bonner comes in to replace Rory Gallagher, this Donegal team and management and system reached the end of the road last year in losing to Mayo but has trundled along this year again to prolong the misery. Some great memories over the last 6 years but time to regroup with a fresh approach and new management team and a few new players for next year. This year is gone and has no interest any more for Donegal, I expect Cork will shade it.”
Sounds to me more like hope than expectation but you get the picture. An obviously disgruntled Donegal fan who has had enough.
Not the only one out there. A G.A.A. stalwart I spoke to during the week was in Clones for the game with Tyrone along with his son who has also put up a few miles in following Donegal. The latter, however, swore that had Donegal earned a replay from that Ulster Final he would not have been back to see it. And don’t expect to see him in Croke Park this weekend either.
Another message to the above website predicts a win for Gallagher’s team but is soaked in cynicism. “Donegal will bore Cork into submission with their handball,” the writer sneers.
And so on. And so on. Remember the time when it was an ‘us against them’ scenario – a Donegal against the world mentality that reflected in our football team? How many of those negative spinners quoted above were seething with indignation when Jim McGuinness and his squad were investing in the blanket on the ground tactics but getting the results, most notably the one that saw Sam arrive back in Donegal four years ago for a first visit in twenty?
The difference then, however, was that Donegal had mastered the art of wholesale defending but were still able to advance into enemy territory and inflict the necessary damage where goals were never found wanting.
The Ulster Final of last Sunday week was notable inadvertently for the distinct lack of goal opportunities – as in absolutely none – created by Donegal. And yet they could, and should, have won it.
I strongly believe they have the beating of a current Cork team that has allowed standards slip from those days when they would be serious contenders not just in a Province that also included Kerry but in All-Ireland terms.
Even if Rory Gallagher doesn’t alter his tactics, I still feel his charges can overcome the Rebels but as was the case in the Tyrone encounter, you can leave yourself wide open in the closing stages if you’re relying on a system that doesn’t get you goals and rarely seems likely to.
Putting Murphy and McBrearty into advance positions and leaving them there can upset any opposition applecart even one with a group of talented defenders. Cork don’t have such a group and with that Donegal forward line breathing down their necks, they can be unsettled to the point of complete submission.
So a win for Donegal on Saturday but let’s hope it’s one achieved with forward thinking and not one where those in the Hogan and Cusack Stands won’t be watching the ball filtering back and forth between them and little – certainly in spectacle terms – to show for it in the end.
After that we can worry about Dublin or Tyrone, the only two teams left in the competition – an ageing Kerry squad will surely not be in contention this time out – that are serious contenders for All-Ireland glory.
And those “few new players” referred to by ‘Rory Losing Matches’? Some will undoubtedly emerge from Shaun Paul Barrett’s Minors – the likes of Niall O’Donnell and Nathan Boyle spring immediately to mind – who can make it a double celebration come Saturday evening at the expense of the Red Rebels.
OLLIE’S MEN LOOK TO OPEN IT UP:
If the match against Bray Wanderers was important in respect of keeping some distance between the sides – sadly, one that got away as far as Finn Harps are concerned – then this weekend’s home fixture against Wexford Youths takes on even more significance for Ollie Horgan’s battlers.
Harps can open up close to an unassailable advantage over the south-easterners if they can take full points from their meeting in Ballybofey on Friday evening.
Shane Keegan’s side – impressive winners of the First Division title last season – have found it harder going in the top rank, ironically perhaps because they have persisted with their open game plan that saw them finish on top of the scoring charts in the 2015 campaign. That has left them wide open at the back and the concession to date of thirty-eight goals in just nineteen outings tells its own story.
It’s a story that manager Horgan will no doubt be repeating to his players before they take the field. Those Youths are vulnerable to quick counter attacks but on the other hand, they can still prove dangerous at the other end of the field even if Danny Furlong, the starman and marksman last year, hasn’t exactly been at his sharpest this term to date.
Eleven point separate the sides before they do battle at Finn Park and surely home advantage can open that up to fourteen and allow Harps to relax a bit more even at this comparatively early stage of the season.
THE MAN WHO KNEW JOEY DUNLOP:
Having a quiet cup of coffee in Letterkenny’s Xpress Stop last Friday afternoon when I got chatting to him.
He was on a short visit to the town from the County of Antrim and was sounding out any local venues that might feature some country music that night.
But I suspect his enthusiasm for this particular musical genre paled into insignificance compared to his passion for motorcycle racing.
You might not, even those of you who would have a comprehensive knowledge of the sport, have heard of John Crawford but he has been on the circuit though not for some time.
And being from Antrim, it’s no surprise that he knew the great Joey Dunlop in person and was an avid follower of the superstar.
“Aw, he was something else. There was nobody like him and none like him since.” John insists. “And a nice fellow as well.”
John was among the fifty thousand mourners who attended the Ballymoney man’s funeral following the tragedy that claimed his life in Tallinn, Estonia, sixteen years ago (can it be that long?) when his bike was in a collision with a tree in wet conditions in a 125cc race.
John’s own career in motor-cycling was much more low key and started back in the mid-sixties. “I bought a 250 Triumph Tiger Club bike and paid the big sum of £15 for it at the time. Some difference now in the cost of them,” he laughs.
“I never raced international and never took part in the North-West 200 because I just couldn’t afford it but I loved motorcycling and still do.”
Though not as a competitor at his current age of 69.
He has a quick chat with the proprietor of the Xpress Stop café and shop, Stephen Shiels, who knows a thing or twenty about motorbikes and motorcycling. And before he leaves he promises to bring along a couple of prominent Northern Ireland footballers he knows for an interview at some stage in the future including Chris Baird and Ryan Dunlop.
Am looking forward to it, John. And if you’ve still got that old £15 worth of machine bring it along too.
FAIRWAY TO HEAVEN:
While I can count on the fingers of one set of golfing gloves how many times I’ve spent out on the fairways (or to be precise, the bunkers) of my local course – most of them dating back to one hot summer when I was a schoolboy and three of us took to the game to see if we were any better at it than we were at football (we weren’t) – I still, nevertheless, take the keenest of interest in any articles in our national or even international media that highlight our own courses here in Donegal.
The latest was a piece in the weekly supplement, ‘Tee to Green’, in the ‘Irish Independent’ that focused on the Ballyliffen club.
The writer, Brian Keogh, did make the mistake that’s par for the course of all Dublin based journalists – namely that he’s writing primarily for an audience in the capital – by reflecting on the “seamless motorway” that would, he suggested, eventually whisk visitors from Dublin to Donegal in little more than a couple of hours. Basically the same distance it takes to get from the capital to Limerick or Cork, he maintained.
“The difference is that as beautiful as parts of Limerick or Cork might be, they will always lose a beauty contest with Donegal and the wild wonders of Ballyliffen, where the 36-hole golf club remains one of the great jewels in the crown of Donegal golf.” Keogh declared.
Can’t argue with that or with the comments attributed to one Rory McIlroy who, the article points out is a regular visitor and a big fan. “You have two brilliant golf courses on a spectacular piece of land and if anyone has a chance to go up to the northwest of Ireland, I think Ballyliffen should be on everyone’s list,” one of the world’s leading exponents of the game proclaimed.
Keogh details the history of the course which was built after a dozen farmers sold 367 acres of dunes land to the club’s founding members who designed the course with advice from the late Eddie Hackett, “the godfather of Irish golf architects.”
“It’s little wonder that six-time Major winner,Nick Faldo, fell in love with the place. In fact he loved Ballyliffen so much he wanted to buy it.” But no way was anybody willing to sell.
The English golfer was involved in upgrading the Old Links course and consequently has some investment in the club.
Ballyliffen club manager, John Farren, is quoted in the article by describing the links as ‘The Gates to Heaven.” Having viewed this slice of paradise, I couldn’t agree more.
Mind you, the way some play the course it‘s probably more like hell.
SPORTING CHEATS DON’T JUST DON SPIKES OR RIDE BIKES:
As the Olympic Games loom large on the sporting horizon and the controversy over the inclusion of Russian participants takes centre stage given the State sponsored doping that helped some of their athletes on the medal podium, I’m moved, not for the first time in this column, to point out the fact that cheating is not just confined to illegal substances that aid progression in a particular sport but is also coated in other forms.
The world media has focused specifically on doping in athletics and professional cycling when medals and titles have been won in hugely suspect circumstances.
But every football league around the globe has its share of cheats – players who drop to the ground in the penalty area at the slightest gust of wind or feign injury in an effort – often successfully – to get an opponent sent off or fumble the ball with their hand to lay on a crucial goal out of sight of the match officials.
Why is there never such an international outcry against this aspect of cheating? Sure, we have the media slaughtering the odd player for continued diving or whatever but the sport as a whole is rarely – never – taken to task for ongoing wrongdoing on the field of play, much of it in high profile games that can determine a cup win, a title success or relegation.
And I know the very fact that the original blanket ban on the Russians was because it WAS backed by the State is relevant and alarming on so many levels but we shouldn’t be ignoring the cheating that permeates other sports and is a back page headline one day and allowed to fade into oblivion the next.
ROUGH CLOUGH:
I see Nigel Clough had a bit of a pop at the League of Ireland when he was commenting on his club, Burton Albion’s signing of Wexford Youths defender, Ryan Delaney.
“He’s yet to play at a decent level,” chimed the former England international.
Notwithstanding the fact that present England internationals haven’t been performing at a decent level anywhere, perhaps Mr Clough should have a quick glance at the Champions League and Europa League fixtures which a couple of rounds into them still include two teams, Dundalk and Cork City, from the L.O.I.
Though it’s unlikely they’ll ever meet Burton Albion on their travels in Europe.
ENGLAND’S SAM:
A few days on and I’m still enjoying a good belly laugh from my former colleague, Alan Foley’s take on the new international appointment across the Irish Sea.
Even England, he says, have managed to get Sam before Mayo…..!
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