PEOPLE OFTEN SAY that performances don’t matter in the Championship and go on about how it’s all about the result.
I don’t buy that this week.
There’s no point in Donegal going out on Sunday, playing a watery game with lots of mistakes and us to sit down on Monday morning and think: ‘Ach, sure it’s grand, didn’t we win?’
That’s the very thing that will derail the train.
I played against Fermanagh six times in the Championship and got the better of them only once – a qualifier in 2001.
Picture caption: The Donegal squad in a huddle during training at Sean MacCumhaill Park. Picture by Geraldine Diver
There wasn’t a lot between us at the time, but we just were in that phase where we turned up and kind of hoped for the best.
We’d have had the potential to be well ahead of them, but the Fermangh games sort of typified what was wrong with that Donegal team.
[adrotate group=”43″]We could have been better and we never hit a peak. Fermanagh would raise the game for us and, for some reason, we dropped off.
Fermanagh came and took us on big time.
In 2000, we lost a poor, stupid match. It was Declan Bonner’s last game in charge of the team. We were just well off the pace.
The next year was funny because they beat us after a replay in Ulster and we drew them in the qualifiers and hammered them.
They always gave us a good match and there was never any bad blood between us. It never got that heated with Fermanagh and there was never much nonsense.
Until 2004…
I’ve often been asked if that July afternoon in Clones was my darkest moment as a footballer.
I’d lost my love for football and were on our way to a qualifier defeat against Fermanagh when Joe McQuillan showed me a red card and I snapped. I prodded Joe a couple of times and got myself a six-month suspension.
My darkest moment? I don’t really think about it that way.
I was fed up. I wasn’t enjoying it and the way we were playing just took the heart out of me.
The whole thing was just unbearable. I knew I’d be banned, but it needed it.
It seems a bit crazy looking back now and knowing what I know.
[adrotate group=”68″]I half knew what would come. That day, there was a lot of pulling, a lot of dragging and an awful lot of mouthing.
Brian McEniff was in begging about it, but it was going to make no difference.
I’d had enough of the pulling, enough of the dragging and enough of the mouthing. That day was just the day when it all came to a head.
I couldn’t see Donegal reaching potential and couldn’t see us getting across the line. That was the only way of getting a break.
Donegal lost that game and Fermanagh went all the way to the All-Ireland semi-final. We were there the year before. That day in Clones, it felt as if we were as far away as ever.
[adrotate group=”70″]So, what about now and this Sunday’s game in Ballybofey?
To lose on Sunday is unthinkable.
We need to see a slick Donegal and, above all, we need to see things that will trouble Monaghan.
Last Sunday, Down were disappointing to the point of being woeful, but Monaghan still looked the real deal in the second half. They signalled their intent.
We need a performance on Sunday that will shake Monaghan. We need to signal back our own intent.
[adrotate group=”46″]We need a win and we need to win well. Even if we beat them and are so-so with the performance, there’ll be a lot of question marks.
We need to be getting rid of those not adding to them.
If Donegal get their act together, the magic is still there.
The worry is that, because Donegal are working with a small squad, when they drop from the grinding style they can become very ordinary.
If Donegal become ordinary on Sunday, Fermanagh will smell blood.
Fermanagh were solid in Division 2 and put it up to most teams, but whatever they do we need to put out a message here.
Fermanagh are going to come with little fear. They’re very well drilled and are well set up. They’ll sit in and will shake us out to see what the form’s like.
[adrotate group=”74″]With my day job I drive around a fair bit and see different places and loads of football. There’s always a question on my mind about Fermanagh, though: Where do they get their players?!
Pete McGrath has used the unity of a small pool and a small squad to improve Fermanagh so much in his time there. I did a talk night up in Fermanagh at the Belnaleck club on Wednesday night and they’re so upbeat going into this one.
But, this is Fermanagh, we’re at home, where we haven’t lost in 14 League and Championship games, and we’re the favourites for a reason.
Donegal have lost their last five games, but take a closer look: Two of them were away to Dublin and one was away to Kerry – those are games we never win; we led most of the way against Monaghan and actually played ok that day; but it’s the Roscommon one, and how much of a truism that was, that’s going to matter this weekend.
[adrotate group=”37″]Fermanagh have problems in the full-back line and Chris Snow isn’t the biggest of goalkeepers. When they played Derry at Owenbeg in the League, Derry were shooting from everywhere in the second half. I think Donegal should look at leaving Michael Murphy and Patrick McBrearty inside and go with the old school tactic of raining ball in on top of them.
Murphy isn’t 100 per cent, but he has to play. Because he’s not at full-tilt I’d play him inside just to be careful with him.
There’s an issue over Karl Lacey’s fitness too, which is a worry.
We’re going to need the likes of Frank McGlynn, the McHughs and Anthony Thompson to contribute a lot.
Really, we’re relying on the same players we always did.
We aren’t like Tyrone. We don’t have the conveyor belt coming through.
Just because we’ve had a middling bit of success with minor and under-21 teams, that won’t translate into senior level. Cavan’s recent history should teach us that.
[adrotate group=”53″]We were lucky to get so many out of the Under-21 team that Jim McGuinness had in 2010 – we really made the most of that squad.
The way it’s gone now, a lot of young lads just aren’t ready for it. You need the body right, almost more so than the mind, and a lot of them just aren’t developed enough to be thrown in.
Murphy and McBrearty were ready. They were men who were physically ready for that battle, but you can’t expect young lads to step in and just be ready for that kind of heat.
Sunday will see one massive change for Donegal – a new goalkeeper.
We’ve taken Paul Durcan for granted in the last few years.
Paul came on so much from the day he had new boots delivered on the morning of an Ulster final against Armagh and let’s just say things didn’t go so well. Paul was the best goalkeeper in Ireland and he was such an integral part of what Donegal were about.
Following him is a huge ask and there’ll be big pressure on Mark Anthony McGinley on Sunday. Never mind that it’s his first-ever Championship appearance, but to come after ‘Papa’ and take on the baton is a massive test for anyone.
[adrotate group=”38″]Against Dublin in the League semi-final, they pushed up and tried to expose Donegal, who couldn’t get the short kick-outs.
Eoin Donnelly and Ryan Jones are on form at the minute for Fermanagh. I’d actually put them among the best in the country right now. With Neil Gallagher out, Fermanagh will want to make their hay here.
There’s a lot of talk about Sean Quigley in Fermanagh, but Tómas Corrigan kicked nine points against Antrim. He’s a livewire, nippy, orthodox corner forward and I’ve seen something different in him of late.
He’s playing with St Oliver Plunkett’s in Dublin and has been arguing with Bernard Brogan lately about taking frees. He’s obviously a player who believes that his time has come.
It can’t be allowed to come on Sunday.
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