JOE BROLLY: The difference maker

IT must be very confusing being Paddy Tally. In the first round, we played Tyrone, who he coached. In the second, Kerry, who he coached. In Celtic Park on Saturday evening, it was Galway, who he also coached. It is a wonder he remembers which dressing room to go into.

Paddy also previously coached Derry. It is only a matter of time before he has coached all 32 counties. The last time he was with us, it sparked the worst slump in Derry’s football history, bringing us from Division One to Division Four. Yet here he is again. Three games, one point.

The Tyrone plan to ruin this Derry team is working.

The first half was dreadful, with both teams playing conservatively and not much happening. The crowd was silent, so the only sounds were the players and coaches shouting, like a Tourettes convention.

Galway do not kick the ball into the forwards at all, even though there was an ocean of space inside for the early ball. Derry meanwhile kicked a total of three long kick passes into the full forward line over the 70 minutes and were rewarded with three points: The first in the 18th minute, when Niall Toner kicked a 40 metre pass to Paul Cassidy who had loads of time to turn and pop it over the bar for an easy point.

The second, in the 26th minute, when from the throw in a nice 40 metre kick pass was sent in to Conor Glass who was fouled for a tap over free. The last one came in the 51st minute, leaving Shane McGuigan with another easy point. Sadly, the significance of this was missed by the players and management. If we had kicked the ball in more often we would most certainly have won.

In the first half, Derry had adopted the novel tactic of not marking Shane Walsh. Walsh kicked two two pointers in a row in the 22nd and 24th minutes and Galway went from four up to eight up. Our miserable half time (Paddy) tally of 0-4 was an accurate reflection of our complete disinterest. “Fuck this, I’m away to the pub” said a Derryman behind us and to be fair we were sorely tempted. “It’ll look bad Brolly if we go now,” said McKeever. So we sat on, freezing, dreaming of pints in the warmth of the Park Bar.

For the second half, nine points behind, Derry did two things. Eoin McEvoy picked up Shane Walsh and was too good for him, holding him scoreless for the rest of the game. The second was that Lachlan Murray was brought on midway through the half and decided to go at the Galway defence, which up until had to do very little other than shuffle left and right and wait for Derry to take a stupid shot.

In one nine-minute spell alone, between the 40th and 49th minutes, we kicked three shots into the ‘keeper’s hands, one terrible wide, and one huge kick up into the air that bounced on the 21.

Starting in the 52nd minute, with Derry six behind and going nowhere, Murray electrified the crowd and his team mates. As his shot for a point curled a metre wide, the umpire nodded confidently to his colleague to raise the white flag. (Why didn’t Jim Gavin recommend umpire training?) 1-11 to 0-9.

Next, he won the kick out and gave the assist for a Conor Glass point. 1-11 to 0-10. From the kick out, he looped around Shane McGuigan, took the pass and scored a beauty. 1-11 to 0-12. Galway then scored a 2 point free.

From the Derry kick out, Murray drove at the defence again and fisted a point. We were roaring now and Galway were falling apart. The kid caught the Galway kick out above his head and set up Shane McGuigan for a neat score: 0-15 to 1-13. With two minutes to go, he drove at the Galway defence, his man panicked and fouled him for the tap over equaliser. The penny has dropped with Lachlan that the new rules reward adventure. It hasn’t for his team mates or for Galway.

After the game, when Paddy Tally went into the Galway changing room and got showered, nobody even noticed.