RYAN MCHUGH AND Patrick McBrearty having been passing balls to one another for as long as they can remember.
Last evening in the Navan sunshine, Donegal and Meath were gridlocked at 1-14 apiece in the depths of injury time as McHugh was the latest member of the visiting team to play a part in a patient move.
Photo caption: Paddy McBrearty shakes off the attentions of Meath’s Mickey Burke and Shane McEntee during Saturday’s qualifier. Photo Evan Logan
McBrearty, who in rugby parlance might’ve been ‘in the pocket’ stood and when located by his Kilcar teammate, drilled a spectacular winning score from right on the 45-metre line. It was also Kevin Cassidy-esque.
“Paddy’s a phenomenal footballer and he’s been doing that for Donegal and Kilcar for a number of years,” McHugh said. I’ve seen him do it at every age level. I was half thinking about going for it myself, but then I saw Paddy, and he’s the scorer in the team, so you’re going to take the better option.
“It felt like an age for the ball to drop, and you were just praying that it would go over the bar, and thankfully it did.”
McHugh gave an honest assessment of where he believes his form has been at but few could doubt how vital his influence was the longer the game went on yesterday.
“From a personal point of view, I haven’t been that happy with my performances since the start of the year,” he said. “I wanted to make it right, but it’s not about individual performances. It’s about the team performance.
“If I’m playing better or anyone is playing better, then that’s good for the team, and thankfully a lot of us had good performances there today. There were a lot of questions asked of this Donegal team before the game, and we didn’t answer them all, but we’ve answered a few today.”
One of McHugh’s greatest talents as a footballer is his innate abilities to time his runs from deep and yesterday on 61 minutes he did just the same and following a pass from Eoghan Ban Gallagher, was on hand to score his trademarked palmed goal.
“I don’t know how many it is,” McHugh replied when asked could he put a number on how many times he’s been on hand to net in such a manner.
“I suppose you have to put yourself in the position to get them, but I can’t take all the credit. It was a great move. Martin McElhinney showed great composure to pass it on and Eoghan Ban gave it across. It was a great team goal, but we were extremely disappointed to concede one straight after. I think that’s a mortal sin in Gaelic Football.
“You’re told from 10/12 years of age that once you score a goal, you don’t concede one straight after. We did that today, but I think we showed good guts and determination to recover after that and get the win.”
Like the collective mood after the 1-21 to 1-12 defeat at Tyrone’s hands in the Ulster semi-final, McHugh says it’s taking time to heel those wounds from Clones.
“There is a hangover,” he said. “No matter what way you dress it up, it wasn’t easy to get over it.”
“We were very grateful for the two weeks. Until we win a few games, the smiles won’t be as strong and won’t be as natural as they should be. There is devastation when you don’t win and we’ve had to deal with that. But it’s all part of learning as a team.
“I’m delighted. First and foremost, we came up here to win the match and thankfully we done that. It wasn’t easy out there and we had to show huge guts and determination to get over the line. We knew coming up that it was going to be tight. Meath are a great footballing team with great tradition. They’ve had great performances here, and we knew it wouldn’t be easy in their back garden and thankfully we just got over the line.”
“It was a great day for football and that’s what you want to be playing in. I think the spectators got a great game out there from both teams. Meath can hold their heads high. They really put in a great performance there today and ran us right to the end.”
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