AFTER ALL the wondering and the waiting, the day is finally upon Rory Gallagher.
Donegal and Fermanagh haven’t met since a 2006 qualifier in Brewster Park, won by Brian McIver’s Donegal, but tomorrow Gallagher looks his county men in the eye and will hope that it isn’t he who blinks.
Picture caption: The Donegal squad pictured ahead of their 2016 Ulster SFC campaign. Picture by Geraldine Diver.
Fermanagh enjoyed a period of mini-dominance over Donegal between 2000 and 2004, when they won four out of the six meetings of the counties.
During the early jousts of that spell, Gallagher was a darling of Fermanagh football’s renaissance.
It was his playful, cheeky chip, over Tony Blake that was key to the Erne County scoring a first win over Donegal in 64 years in 2000.
Gallagher top-scored in Ulster in 2000, 2001 and 2002, but a fall-out with Charlie Mulgrew burst a balloon by the Erne.
Gallagher was something of a wandering star – he’d have a spell lining out for Cavan as well as stints with St Brigid’s in Dublin and St Gall’s in Belfast – but he returned to Fermanagh.
He played for his home county in 2010, but when John O’Neill was appointed Fermanagh manager, it was Gallagher’s cue to leave.
A few months later, he was the surprise choice of Jim McGuinness as assistant manager in Donegal.
[adrotate group=”53″]Since Gallagher joined Donegal, they’ve played and defeated seven of the other eight Ulster teams. The only exception is his homeland.
The Belleek man will have been privately happy when Donegal were paired with Fermanagh in October.
The late start was something he expressed public satisfaction with and was a note he struck at several intervals during the Allianz League.
It is nine weeks now since Gallagher sat in the Hogan Stand’s media room in early April, puffed out his cheeks and mused that a 10-point defeat by Dublin was ‘harmless enough in the greater scheme of things’.
[adrotate group=”46″]The week before that League semi-final at Croke Park, Gallagher gave his players the week off.
They met up on the Thursday ‘for a light kick about and a stretch, that was it’, as if to outline their take-it-or-leave-it attitude to a competition once described by McGuinness as ‘an irrelevance’.
For Gallagher, June 12 was all that mattered from that evening in October when he was paired with the county of his birth.
“Just because we were in a league semi-final didn’t change our preparations overall,” Gallagher said that afternoon in April.
[adrotate group=”68″]“Once the draw is made you work towards that date and the league semi-final – don’t get me wrong we wanted to perform better than we did – but there wasn’t the same tactical focus as you would do for another game.”
Gallagher’s approach to 2016 has always centred on June 12: Tomorrow.
He gave six of his players – Eamon McGee, Karl Lacey, Neil Gallagher, Christy Toye, Colm McFadden and David Walsh – extended breaks before they resumed training in the winter.
Of that sextet, only Lacey has been named in the starting line-up for tomorrow’s game with the injury that has kept Gallagher side-lined since March not healing in time.
McFadden and Toye are no longer automatic first XV players, but both could be called upon and, with Lacey said to be fighting his own fitness race, McGee may yet come into the reckoning.
[adrotate group=”74″]Mark Anthony McGinley has been handed his first start, with Paul Durcan’s 32-game sequence in the Championship finally set to be broken. McGinley is the sole Championship debutant, although Kieran Gillespie is said to be pushing hard for inclusion.
With the likes of McGee, McFadden, Toye, Gallagher and Durcan not listed in the starters now, the average age of the team is considerably reduced. Tomorrow, the average age of Gallagher’s starting line-up is 25, much lower than you’d be led to believe.
Donegal are going into the game as something of an unknown.
The last nine weeks have been as quiet as has been seen in the county for some time. Gallagher shunned media duties, save for a low-key press conference in Ballybofey last Friday night.
With that in mind, it’s no surprise perhaps that some Donegal supporters are a little apprehensive.
[adrotate group=”70″]Five defeats in a row ended the League on a downer, when it had started so brightly with impressive wins over Down, Cork and Mayo.
There were some worrying signs.
“It was a lethargic display against a very hungry team,” was how Gallagher described a defeat by Roscommon in Letterkenny.
“There is no doubt that our full-back line was in bother early on. We didn’t have a lot of protection there. We had trouble tacking the runners. They ran through us at will and they were able to get quality ball inside.”
Against Kerry, Donegal were going well until a goal by Peter Crowley rocked them on a day when discipline proved costly. Dublin, Monaghan and Dublin again defeated Donegal, but all the while the Tír Chonaill manager had the look of a man unbothered by it all.
Gallagher knows Fermanagh better than anyone.
And he knows well the danger that will come over the border at his home village of Belleek tomorrow afternoon.
Pete McGrath has lifted the tide in Fermanagh.
Promotion last year was followed by a run to an All-Ireland quarter-final loss to Dublin that they gave a lash. They held their own in Division 2 this year and defeated Antrim in the preliminary round on a day when Tómas Corrigan’s nine points earmarked him as a dangerman ahead of tomorrow’s joust in Ballybofey.
McGrath knows what it takes at the top level.
[adrotate group=”68″]He led Down to All-Irelands in 1991 and 1994 and he spoke with real promise after that Dublin game last August.
“Fermanagh have never won an Ulster championship and that is our target,” he said.
“We’ll now work towards that and I feel it’s something that we can achieve. A provincial title is everybody’s ambition in the province.
“Why should Fermanagh not be able to stand up and say that our objective for next year is to win our first Ulster title? No other Ulster county has that as their objective – but we have.
“I think it would be a marvellous achievement for this group of players that they could go on and be the first Fermanagh team to do that.
“We have the players to do it. I don’t say that with any kind of arrogance, I say it with belief, total belief.”
Time was when it was the hope that killed Donegal’s supporters, but now they expect.
[adrotate group=”38″]Michael Murphy has been said to be troubled by an ankle injury of late and it is likely that Donegal will opt to leave the captain and Patrick McBrearty towards the Fermanagh goal, something that will surely have Ché Cullen and Chris Snow tossing in their pillows tonight.
With a new goalkeeper and no Neil Gallagher for him to target, Donegal will want to play it safe, but Gallagher has the returned Rory Kavanagh, Leo McLoone, Martin McElhinney and Hugh McFadden to throw a fair bit of power around the engine room.
In the early moments of the League, we saw a dynamic and decisive Donegal attack and it’s something that the manager might look to resurrect again tomorrow.
The squad have also a five-day training camp in Tenerife from February under their belts ahead of a day Gallagher has been prepping for for some time.
Early in the year, Gallagher said: “We have nine weeks from the end of the League to the start of the Championship and that’s a great time.
We have a good bit of heavy work done so we’ll be able to enjoy the League without worrying about fitness for the Championship.
“The key date is June 12 and we want to be close to our best by then.”
He’s known for some time that he was heading into this day, when he’ll be like a would-be groom coming face-to-face with the girl he jilted.
The time has allowed him prepare for it.
Now, it’s upon him.
Verdict: Donegal to pull away for an eventually-comfortable win
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