Fr Dougal is trapped on the explosive milk float, Ted has the lads from the neighbouring island over to help come up with a plan to rescue the dimwitted Curate. After all sorts of tomfoolery, it finally dawned on some of them to put a brick on the accelarator.
Enabling Dougal to get off the float before it crashes and explodes. It was a case of the simplest and most obvious solution being the way to go.
Now, there were no milk floats or daft priests on the pitch in Clones on Sunday, but, in the end, a game that was like spending 90 minutes alone with Fr Stone was decided by the underdogs doing the most basic thing in their remit. Kicking the ball!
There are those who blame Jim McGuinness and Donegal for the decay which has infested Gaelic football for the last decade or so, but such labelling would be, in this case, misguided.
The poison was incubated and transmitted by Mickey Harte on the day he sent his Tyrone team out to produce what Pat Spillane infamously labelled “Puke” football against Kerry. The unfortunate thing about it is, the rest of the football world followed them like a flock of sheep going out a gap.
However, just like the situation covered in another recent column here, all it takes to affect change is somebody having the courage to try something different or new. In terms of beating zonal, swarm defence, that has meant – would you believe it – kicking the ball!
It amazes me that, with Dublin having, in the last decade, proven themselves to be the greatest team the old game has ever seen, that more counties haven’t even tried to copy what they do. On the field at least.
That is to say, kicking the ball. Using kick passes, shooting from distance. Though what separates them from the rest is the speed, efficiency and accuracy with which they make it work.
We’ll get back to Dublin in due course, but, it’s not over simplifying what transpired in St Tiarnach’s Park to say that Derry won their first Ulster SFC since 1998 largely due to their willingness to kick the ball. As all the while their opponents handpassed themselves into triangles more complex than that in Bermuda.
Of course there were other elements to their success. Perhaps none greater than the almost complete shutdown job Chrissy McKaigue did on Paddy McBrearty. Though for once the Slaughtneil colossus may have been – by a short head or a neck – bettered by his club and full back line colleague Brendan Rogers.
Several points come to mind here. Every team, even at club level, has at least one flagship defender. The one who knits the whole unit together. For Dublin, that’s James McCarthy, in Mayo, look for Lee Keegan, Armagh had Francie and Geezer when they were the biggest show in town and the McKaigue/Rodgers double axel have joint custody of that role for Rory Gallagher’s men.
Secondly, while the ghoulish blanket defence may only have inhibited the game in the last couple of decades but the phenomenon of players sacrificing their own game for the greater good is nothing new.
In fact, one could say my namesake and neighbour patented the concept as far back as the mid to late 1980s. When faced with the best half back triumvirate the one seeing eye here has witnessed – Paul Curran, Keith Barr and Eamon Heery – the dispatch papers for David Beggy and PJ Gillic, in particular, were to stop the two sky blue wing backs raiding from defence.
Furthermore, none other than Brian Cody has had as part of his staple diet for serial success two – usually towering – wing forwards sitting in the pocket behind midfield and then breaking out at speed. Players like John Hoyne and Martin Comerford excelled in the role and it has already become obvious that current Cats captain Adrian Mullen is the latest to assume the baton in that regard.
The final pivotal point that became ever more obvious as the game wore on was that part of Donegal’s game plan played right into Derry’s hands. For as long as Michael Murphy has been the fulcrum for the men from the hills, it has been routine for him to rotate between drifting outfield like a hunter-gatherer and then stationing close to goal in the guise of an assassin waiting to be supplied with ammunition.
Aside from that Murphy has huge mileage put up despite being only 32, his roaming outfield had catastrophic consequences for Declan Bonner’s charges because all it succeeded in doing was drawing Brendan Rogers up the field and in so doing paved the way for the most mobile of full backs to turn in a Man Of The Match performance.
During which the battle-hardened warrior drove over three mighty points, the best portrait of Derry’s victory there could be. Yes, they passed the ball around until they got out to the half back line before letting the ball do the work.
Either by way of targeting Shane McGuigan in the full forward line or the entire team seemingly being possessed of the ability to kick scores from way out the field.
The contest had begun as if it were going to be played out on Donegal’s terms. Cagey, negative and a great cure for insomnia. Thankfully though, once Niall Loughlin finished a fine move to the net, their opponents had no alternative but to come out of their shells, to some extent anyway.
However, courtesy of fine kicked scores from McGuigan, Conor Doherty, Shea Downey, Paul Cassidy and the goalscorer, the team that Rory built led by 1-06 to 0-06 when they took shelter from the baking May sun.
Donegal had to up their game on the resumption and to be fair to them they did. Murphy made a pitstop in midfield for the throw-in and so began a move which concluded with Odhran McFadden-Ferry scoring a fine goal to bring matters to parity.
Thereafter, the pre-match favourites had what was probably their best spell in the game, but at no stage were they able to put the challengers away. So the extra time the Oak Leaf County earned after falling two behind was wholly merited.
Again, mind you, Bonner’s boys edged two clear in the overtime but were once more reeled in, with substitutes Aaron Doherty and Emmet Bradley traded scores. The latter is one of the longest serving players in Gallagher’s gang and, even from a neutral perspective, seeing him drive over that mighty point put the seal on the fact that it was Derry’s day.
Though how fitting it was that the final act of a strange but entertaining match came from Conor Glass. The flame haired flier from Glen has been a revelation since returning from Australia.
Having been the driving force behind Watty Grahams inaugural Derry SFC win, it is an unavoidable conclusion that his infusion has given the county team that bit extra which has enabled their continued progress.
***
The same can absolutely be said of Con O’Callaghan’s return to the Dublin setup. Perhaps in a case of being extremely foolhardy, there was a school of thought which declared the boys in blue weren’t the force of old.
In reality, while there were undoubtedly potholes in the road – most notably being bereft of the Cuala maestro for the entire league campaign. But methinks it was also a case of them timing their run. You don’t want a horse to peak for the Hattons Grace Hurdle in December and be flat by the second week in March.
To the profound regret of many of us, Dessie Farrell’s men know they can slip through the province they have made their own for more than a decade without letting off the handbrake. Yet even by their own gargantuan standards, what they have produced in their last two outings has been astounding.
The manager and playing personnel may have changed a bit in recent years but the Jim Gavin template is still very much Plan A. Rapidly quick restarts, kick passing and scores coming from every angle all over the field. The strange thing is that so few teams have copped on to follow suit.
Even though it should be glaringly that the methods the employ are well worth using, the vast majority of teams still appear to be swayed by the more pedantic supposedly more nuanced way of playing the game. The tide may be turning though. Slowly, but turning.
It was one of the main negative traits about Kevin Walsh’s tenure as Galway boss that they appeared to abandon the fluid, aesthetically pleasing football for which the county has been famed for since the days of Sean Purcell, Frank Stockwell, Enda Colleran, Ja Fallon and whomever else one cares to mention.
Latterly, being sucked in by the cult of mass defence. Presumably in an effort to shore up whatever perceived shortcomings there were in the western rearguard. It can hardly be claimed to have worked though when both Mayo and Roscommon have repeatedly got the better of the maroon and white in recent years.
It was always a fairly safe bet that any side managed by Padraic Joyce would restore the values which Galway football has espoused for generations. Defenders who were ball players as well as efficient at the ‘day job’, midfielders who can drive on and kick scores and silkly skilled forwards who, when served with trademark Tribesman low, quick ball out in front of them and they will give any defence plenty to do.
For this observer at least, the thread knitting the weekend’s four finals was the amount of kicked ball in each of them. No doubt the modernists shook at a return to such things, but, if a return to the ‘old fashioned’ football becomes the norm, sign me up!
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