By Niall Gartland

HE’S a mainstay of the Fermanagh senior footballers, but Darragh McGurn is just as renowned for his work as a Strength and Conditioning coach.

The 27-year-old forward has accrued a massive following on popular social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram (a recent video discussing the downside of vaping has been viewed more than one million times) and he has plenty of name-recognition among the younger generation in particular.

Most of his online clips are centred on drills, recovery, nutrion but they also take us into the life of an intercounty footballer, which is very much intertwined with his day-to-day work.

Asked to give a neat summation of what exactly he does for a living at the recent launch of the Ulster Championship, McGurn said: “I work with players individually online. I’ve got my own community going on, where I give programmes and nutrition guidelines. It’s everything to do with performance really, and I’ve been able to build that through social media.”

If you’ve never met the fella, believe us – he’s in superb nick. Built like a….

But that said, he says sheer musculature isn’t the be-all and end-all for senior intercounty footballers. Asked the rather innocent question of what exact physical traits are top of the pyramid, he said: “Your engine is huge. The way the game has gone now, it’s so intense – it’s repeat speed, being able to go as hard in the last five minutes as you do in the first five. Speed is a big one as well, and agility. The best players in one-on-one situations, they’re able to change direction sharply, kick on the run – that’s all gone through the roof in the last few years.

“Speed, agility and engine are probably the three main ones at the minute. Having physical size is important, but probably not as much as those frst three now, as players aren’t taking as much contact anymore. It’s more about how hard they can run the ball and evade tackles.”

Though he’s edging towards the late-twenties mark, Darragh is yet to know the feeling of winning an Ulster Championship match. They came agonisingly close this time last year but were rocked back on their heels by two late Down goals. It was the ultimate sucker punch – the worst of his career to date.

“That infamous game. We were six or seven points up. It was a gut-wrenching defeat, to be honest. They got two goals in the last 10 minutes. It’s probably the defeat that’s hurt the most in my career as a Fermanagh player. You don’t win too many Ulster Championship games, and that would’ve been nearly the monkey off the back. The manner of losing it was very tough. It gives us a bit of fuel going into this year – we have something to prove. Getting a result would’ve meant a lot to us.”

It won’t be easy to make amends as they await the winners of this weekend’s preliminary round contest of Tyrone and Armagh. Barring a miracle run to the Ulster final, they’ll once again throw their eggs in the Tailteann Cup basket, and McGurn hopes that the ditching of the group stages will bring a bit of fresh life into the competition in terms of enticing a wider audience.

They’re changing the structure this year, there’s no group stage, but there is a backdoor, similar to the All-Ireland. That might add to it, more knockout games. Last year was our first time getting to the semi-finals in Croke Park, and there was a good buzz around that. You want to be getting to that stage at a minimum. For us, the aim is to win the Tailteann Cup.

“The GAA probably could do more to create a bit of buzz. For a lot of teams in Ireland, that’s the biggest competition, so creating more interest around it would be a good thing.”

It’s been a frustrating few months to the team and they fell through the relegation trapdoor in Division Three. What’s done is done, says McGurn, and the important thing is learning from the experience.

“It’s one of those where you start off the league campaign with a couple of defeats and it gets difficult to turn that around. Especially that first game against Wexford at home – we expected to win that game. It was a bit of a sucker punch. Performance levels, we felt, in certain facets were very, very good. Execution at times in front of the posts was what was letting us down. We struggled to get up to the level needed to get the results we wanted.

“It is frustrating, especially as a forward myself. We were all trying to figure out ways we could improve that. It definitely wasn’t the case that everything was poor. We knew if certain things clicked, we’d have won a lot of those games. So yeah, disappointing to be honest. The last place we want to be is in Division Four, but it’s done now and there are huge learnings to take into the championship.”

Hope springs eternal and McGurn is confident that they have the right man on the sidelines in Declan Bonner, who is in his first year at the helm.

“Declan’s brilliant. He’s someone who will challenge you week in, week out. He sets a standard that you have to meet as an intercounty footballer. He’s won Ulster Championships with Donegal so he knows what it takes. He also knows Fermanagh football inside out through his time at Erne Gaels.

“Soe’s been brilliant and has raised the standards across the board. Again, results just haven’t gone our way.

“It’s easy to blame this, that or the other, but as a whole we’re happy with that side of things.”