KEVIN CASSIDY: Christmas has come early

JUST as I was about to finish this week’s piece the earth-shattering news broke that Micheal Murphy has returned to the Donegal camp.

Rumours had been floating about for a number of weeks and I have to admit when I saw him on TV during the interprovincials last month, I noticed he has trimmed down a lot.

That led me to believe he had possibly been put on a program by Jim with a view to making a return.

The news is certainly a massive boost to Donegal’s chances this year. In particular, with the likely introduction of the new rules, a Micheal Murphy type player is tailor made for the changes.

Christmas has certainly come early here in the Hills.

Meanwhile, last weekend, Donegal champions St Eunan’s made their swift exit from the Ulster Club Championship at the hands of Tyrone’s Errigal Ciaran.

The Tyrone champions pulled away in the last few minutes, hitting a couple of very important scores on the break.

Before we look at the game, I want to pull you back to last week’s column. When you think of the amount of time that is put into preparing a team at this level nowadays, it just baffles me as to how teams cannot take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

Without knowing anything about St Eunan’s tactics or how they were going to approach the game or their match-ups, I was able to tell you last week that in order to win this game, they had to be hitting 12 or 13 points at the very least.

Managers and selectors can go through all the stats they want, but, in reality, the only stat that really matters is how many points you are putting on the board. If you are not putting scores on the board that’s the area you need to zone in on and forget everything else.

Over the last number of years, we have become obsessed with possession-based stats, turnovers and tackles but we have lost sight of what matters most. Whoever scores the most wins the game.

I’m sure now over the winter months, St Eunan’s will reflect on that game and have some big regrets. Unfortunately for them, it’s a hell of a long way back to that stage again.

Errigal Ciaran march on to play Antrim champions Cargin in the next round. You would have to say that at this stage, along with Kilcoo, they are probably in the bracket of favourites to win competition.

This Sunday, I will make my way to Celtic Park with TG4 to cover the clash of the Derry and Armagh champions. It’s a game that I am really looking forward to because it’s new ground for Newbridge and relatively fresh for Clann Éireann. This should make for a very interesting encounter.

The big question on everyone’s lips is whether or not Newbridge can build on their historic win over All-Ireland champions Glen so all will be revealed at the weekend.

Like I said last week, with Glen now out of the competition it really opens up the door for all of the rest of the teams who will now all believe that they have a real chance of going the whole way.

All of the Ulster teams are in action this weekend so after Sunday evening the picture should be a lot clearer, but I still expect the heavy-hitters Kilcoo, Scotstown and Errigal Ciaran to be in the mix.

Before I sign off, I would just like to take this opportunity to acknowledge probably one of the greatest players ever to play our game after he announced his retirement during the week.

Dublin’s James McCarthy heads off into the sunset with his nine All-Ireland medals never mind his other achievements.

For me, he provided everything that was good about that great Dublin team. Tough. Aggressive. Hard-working. Skilful. Modest. Driven.

He just had it all in spades and what a fantastic lad to go along with it.

He will no doubt go on to play for his club Ballymun in the coming years, but, I for one, will miss the sight of him galloping around Croke Park. He was just simply a joy to watch.