WHEN RORY GALLAGHER lifted the ball over Tony Blake in the 2000 Ulster SFC in Ballybofey, it gave Fermanagh an unexpected win over Donegal.
In the last year of the pre-qualifier era, in his 50 minutes on the field before being forced to retire through a knee injury, Gallagher’s 1-6 was enough to seal the man of the match award in Fermanagh’s first championship win over Donegal since 1936, 1-12 to 0-13.
The Donegal panel put in their final preparations for their Ulster SFC quarter-final against Fermanagh in Ballybofey. Photo: Geraldine Diver
Belleek native and Erne Gaels clubman Gallagher was top-scorer in the roughest and tumblest of provincial championships three years in succession from 2000 to 2002; all achieved with arguably the least fashionable participant – Fermanagh – the only one of its nine counties never to lift the Anglo-Celt Cup.
“They’ve been written off their whole lives,” Gallagher, the Donegal manager, said of his side’s opponents this Sunday.
“It’s something that they’re used to and I know from even playing with some of them lads. It won’t worry them in the slightest.
“I personally believe Fermanagh have the smallest playing population. Half the population just don’t play. There’s only 20 clubs. The Leitrims of this world would have more than that.”
[adrotate group=”37″]Since Donegal began to crank up the gears in Ulster in 2011, Fermanagh are the only one of the other eight combatants they’ve yet to meet. The last time the neighbouring counties met in the championship was a fourth round qualifier in 2006, an occasion remembered more for Ciaran Bonner’s shuddering shoulder on Eamon Maguire at Brewster Park.
Between those punctuation points – Gallagher sealing the Fermanagh victory in 2000 and Brian McIver’s team’s 0-11 to 0-8 success in 2006 – Fermanagh defeated Donegal in the championships of 2001, 2003 and 2004 – no wins in almost 64 years to three wins in just over four.
“What I do know is that between 1999 and 2010 they won eight out of their 11 first round championship matches, which is very impressive in a province like Ulster,” Gallagher said of Fermanagh. “There was a couple of years  – 2011, ’12 and ’13 where they didn’t but they’re back winning them again now. They’ve got a head of steam built up.”
[adrotate group=”38″]When one star rises and another falls, sooner or later their paths will cross.
Fermanagh’s star in certain on the rise but for the Donegal of 2016, it’s still uncertain where their coordinates are precisely.
“There’s people who’ve been writing us off and you have to value what they’re saying,” Gallagher said. “Some people have wanted Donegal as a force to be over with a long time ago – 2011, 2012, 2013 – right up to last year people have been writing our obituary.
“Fermanagh are very much on the up and I think to be fair Fermanagh have been very competitive in the last 12 or 15 years. Since Pete McGrath has come in they’ve been on an upward curve.”
Michael Murphy commonly makes the point at their wins are perhaps over-appreciated, while the losses aren’t as bad as some of the postmortems may state. The exact state of affairs – the Donegal captain says – is usually somewhere between those two considerations.
And after Donegal won emphatically to defeat Down, Cork and Mayo in the opening rounds of the Allianz League Division 1 before losing four on the bounce and then the semi-final against Dublin, the seasonal lopsidedness is apparent. Hence, the uncertainly over where Donegal are at.
But Gallagher isn’t the first Donegal manager to look at the calendar in late October for the following year, circle the first Ulster SFC date and start to tot the number of weeks backward. The league’s aspiration – first and foremost – is survival and whatever way you look back at the springtime that objection was achieved after three outings.
There were limited positives in the rest, with the first half against Roscommon and the second in Castleblayney when faced with Monaghan, the particular lows. The semi-final against Dublin, which resulted in a 1-20 to 0-13 trimming in the end, had all the looks of a fixture on a date that hadn’t really been circled on the calendar at all.
[adrotate group=”63″]Donegal’s league form has never proven to provide much scope of exactly where the team are or are perceived to be. When McIver took the Division 1 title to the Diamond in Donegal town in 2007, Donegal were gone from the championship before the Ulster final and a qualifier loss to Monaghan in Omagh meant no All-Ireland quarters.
Jim McGuinness won Sam Maguire having survived in the top flight following a last day survival act in 2012 and two years later his side made it as far as the third Sunday in September having started the campaign in Division 2.
Last year – Gallagher’s first – the draw was particularly unkind and having negotiated wins over Tyrone, Armagh and then Derry a misfiring Donegal still only lost the Ulster final by a single point – and a matter of inches when Patrick McBrearty’s late effort for an equalising score is recalled – against Monaghan.
Championship is what it’s proven to be about for Donegal and their manager is content with their placement as the last of the nine Ulster counties to take the field, having been drawn in the preliminary round in three of the last five season.
The Donegal players, management and backroom team at MacCumhaill Park in Ballybofey.
Photo: Geraldine Diver
“We’ve enjoyed the buildup, last October we would have liked to have been last or second last out considering we’ve had a lot of early starts over the last five or six years,” Gallagher added. “We’ve very much enjoyed the buildup and the lads were away for a week for club championship and that but its been good and its obviously being topped off now with the weather hitting good.
“Thew whole season has been geared towards being ready for now. Contrast that to last year where we had a late start after being in an All-Ireland final in 2014. And then we were out against Tyrone on May 17 and that’s a much more pressurised situation.
“Now it’s been nice and relaxed all year. We had a good start to the league and we knew we could really focus in then on June 12. When we knew then it was Fermanagh it has brought a nice edge to it over the last couple of weeks.”
The flipside of the late start is the fact Donegal now face a team who have already exposed themselves to championship football this summer. Fermanagh, last month in Enniskillen, overcame Antrim 1-12 to 0-9 having done the spadework to establish a seven-point interval lead.
[adrotate group=”69″]“They can be very pleased with their first half display,” Gallagher said. “There’s very few games you go in seven points up at half-time – it was 0-9 to 0-2. They were very clinical. The second half? It probably didn’t work in a bad way for Pete McGrath as Antrim came back and made it tight. Fermanagh pulled away then but that’s probably a stick that could’ve been used to beat them over the last few weeks.
“Maybe they switched off. Sometimes that happens. Like ourselves last year in the Athletic Grounds against Armagh. Practically the game can be over at half-time and it can be difficult for teams.”
Sixteen years ago, Gallagher was centre-stage at MacCumhaill Park when Donegal took on Fermanagh. This time out, you get the feeling he would be happy enough should his team do the talking. The fact he’s taking on his home county is irrelevant. He will plan to expect the unexpected.
“I’m gone out of Fermanagh since 2002 but at the same time they’d obviously be a team that I would follow,” Gallagher added. “But obviously you move on; and I’m very much part of the furniture with these boys for the last five or six years.
“You have a great bond, a great friendship and number one you have a great hunger to win games; we always want to win the first round of the championship and it happens to be Fermanagh this time.”
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