GERARD O’KANE: Back with a bang

BY the time this column is published, county managers up and down the country will be like the referee from the original Gladiators show, John Anderson, roaring: “Gladiators, are you ready?!” This is exactly what will be echoed across the changing rooms during the final inter-county sessions on Thursday and Friday of this weekend.

After a long six months without meaningful action, the inter-county season begins with a bang this weekend. Division One always draws the headline act. Every game in it each week is tipped as a “big clash”, a “provincial derby”, or a “relegation four-pointer”.

Some of this might be media hype designed to capture the imagination, but as the weeks roll on and the table begins to even itself out, these headlines will become reality for most teams.

Take, for instance, Monaghan against Armagh this weekend. A provincial derby it certainly is. Armagh are shorn of a number of regulars, with places very much up for grabs, while Monaghan (minus their Scotstown contingent) are coming off the back of several high-profile retirements but enjoyed a fairly solid McKenna Cup campaign. Try predicting a winner for that game with any degree of certainty. I could be swayed either way if someone put up a decent argument.

Or take Dublin and Donegal, two of the current heavyweights. Dublin, with a new manager, are a team in transition who – regardless of personnel – will always be in the conversation purely through strength of numbers. They come up against a Donegal side who looked super fit in the McKenna Cup. Watching them live against both Derry and Monaghan, they fielded seven or eight u-20 players in each game, clearly searching for one or two lads who, come the summer, could be the next Finbarr Roarty. All of the young players looked extremely comfortable, and Donegal dominated both second halves.

Prediction-wise, I would expect Donegal to go to Croke Park and be just that bit ahead of Dublin at this stage. Last year, Donegal won four on the bounce before changing things up and focusing on giving lads game time with a view to later in the season, and I would expect them to be quick out of the blocks again this time.

We also have a repeat of last weekend’s club pairing of Kerry and Roscommon. If their inter-county counterparts live up to anything like the drama of the club game, we will be in for a real treat, although I would doubt this match will be played with the same intensity as last week’s club final. They always say round one is the best time to get Kerry, as they tend to be slow starters and will be minus their Dingle and possibly An Ghaeltacht players. However, with a Roscommon team failing to beat Sligo last weekend, it is hard to look past a Kerry win.

The final Division One game is another provincial derby, Galway against Mayo – two teams who played out a tight contest last week, separated by just one point. Who would back against the same again? I’ll go for a draw in this one.

Next, I’ll move on to matters closer to the heart. Derry versus Meath in Croke Park, officially a home game for Meath, is an intriguing one.

Derry showed glimpses during the McKenna Cup and clearly had a policy of getting minutes into legs where possible, but some flaws were exposed against Donegal. With a mass of 6ft 3in men around the middle, Donegal strangled Derry and reeled off 1-7 without reply. Derry were missing key figures in that area – Brendan Rogers, Dan Higgins and Eoin McEvoy – and the concern is that they may not have all of them back this weekend. If Donegal were big, Meath are just as big. Hopefully, Croke Park will provide enough space to allow us to manoeuvre around that and play the game on the ground.

There is expectation among Meath fans this year following their semi-final appearance last season. They had a quiet pre-season, choosing to field mostly inexperienced sides while their senior players played challenges against seasoned teams. It will be interesting to see if this approach pays off. This fixture 25 years ago was among the biggest in Ireland. I have fond memories of Tohill v McDermott, McKeever v Giles, Lockhart v Ollie Murphy, and Darren Fay v Muldoon. These games featured the stars of the day going toe-to-toe, and more often than not, Derry came out on top, so I’m hoping for the same result this Saturday afternoon.

Finally, as mentioned above, matters closer to the heart. While Derry is in there, it’s only fair that I mention my own club, Glenullin, and our game in Croke Park two weeks ago. The weekend itself was magical all round, and while neither the result nor the performance was what we wanted, that one hour is only a snapshot of the previous six months. To view it in isolation would be foolish and naïve. Across five games in Derry, four in Ulster, and one All-Ireland semi-final, we played exhilarating football – shooting the lights out and finishing as the highest average scorers in the competition.

For whatever reason, it just didn’t come together on the day. The management and players will reflect on that in time and piece it together, but from my perspective, I couldn’t be prouder. When you get to that stage, if you do get beaten, the worst-case scenario is that you want to push the other team to the pin of their collar and force them to play their very best to beat you.

Unfortunately, that didn’t happen, but it doesn’t take away from the work done to get there or from Glenullin earning the right to be there. While it is still raw, I’ll leave it with Alfred Lord Tennyson’s words from In Memoriam A.H.H.: “‘Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”