JOE BROLLY: A tale of contrasts

AFTER the Ulster final last year, Jimmy McGuinness stood on an articulated trailer in the centre of Donegal town and told the throngs,”There is only one thing left for us to win, and we are going to go after that with everything we have.”

Since then, a panel of players that looked very ordinary before he took over, has been transformed into the game’s most efficient team. They are receiving a world class education. Everything they do makes sense. Everything they do is logical. They start their games with a handicap of plus five, because they do not foul in the scoring area. Because everything they do in training is purposeful, the players do not have the anxiety of being unsure of their roles. I was in a losing dressing room once at half time and our manager roared “Youse are f***ing useless. For f*** sake would somebody do something.” You know the rest.

With Jimmy there are no abstract instructions. Everything is rehearsed. I watched them training once in Downings, in 2014 with my old Derry team mate Fergal McCusker. We stood looking over the low wall, chatting and enjoying the scene. They would rehearse for five minutes. Then they would gather round Jimmy, he would give instructions for a minute, they would drink water, then back to their rehearsal. It was like a theatre director taking his cast through a new play. After about 15 minutes, two stewards came over, stood in front of us and said Jimmy wanted us to leave. McCusker (he keeps a great straight face) said, “What are you going to do about it boys?” ” Ah jesus lads, seriously, you know what Jimmy’s like (pronounced Jummy), I’d appreciate it if you let it go.” Which was fair enough. We didn’t want the two boys banned for life by Donegal GAA.

Not long after that, in an immortal semi-final, the golden boys of Dublin were stunned, shocked, flabbergasted, overwhelmed by the first staging of Donegal’s new play. The genius of that ambush. The sheer audacity. The way Donegal had kept it secret, not giving away a single clue in their championship run to date.

Wind forward to the first round of the championship last year. Derry were league champions after an exhilirating victory over Dublin in the league final, reigning Ulster champions and All-Ireland favourites. Donegal were widely viewed as plucky Division Two winners who would have the Jimmy hallmarks of great fitness, well organised defence and good free taking, but who had an ordinary enough group of players. The general consensus was that they would lose by five or six to Derry’s suffocating high press and all out attack. There was no hint of what was to come as we swigged pints beforehand in the Park Bar. When Tony Boyle said, “I think youse’ll beat us by eight or nine” there was general agreement. “It’ll bring us on,” said Boyle. ” We have a young team and it’s exactly the sort of challenge they need to improve.”

Nobody saw it coming. Jimmy had identified our weakness – Mickey Harte was playing an offside trap in a game that has no offside. We pushed up, including our keeper, as we had done all season. Donegal went over the top and looked for goals into the empty net. It was ruthless, deliberate and meticulously planned. They scored four goals and humiliated us. The Derry boys never recovered from the psychological damage. In the Park afterwards, Tony Boyle couldn’t stop laughing. “Youse showed a lot of character when you were eleven behind” and, “Youse will have learned a lot from today.”

Turns out we didn’t learn a lot. Or anything. Since that day, we have played 13 league and championship games, won two, been relegated to Division Two after getting only 1 point from seven games with a score difference of minus 44 (the only team in the division in minus territory), lost our last league game to Armagh a fortnight ago by fifteen points and were beaten on Sunday against Donegal by 10 points.

Under Tally, we have not won a single game. Eight games, seven defeats, one draw. The annihilation of belief under the two Tyrone men has been swift and merciless.

As for Donegal, Jimmy is no longer able to control the game to the extent he could under the old rules, where players were more or less remote controlled from the sideline. The new rules have brought unpredictability. Short kick outs are suicidal. The kick outs must be fought for. Leads cannot be protected. The play cannot be delayed. The defence cannot hold possession in their own half for three and four minutes. In this new era, teams with the best players have an advantage. It is for Kerry and Galway to squander that advantage. The question for Jimmy is whether his methods can overcome those natural advantages. He has reduced the game to its core elements – speed all over the field, impeccable handling, hard hard running in support of a team mate, no stupid shots, no fouls in the scoring area, lightning fast counter attacks off the opposition kick out, impeccable tackling, zero indiscipline.

Derry’s reserves of confidence are gone. Morale, the core of any team, is destroyed. Mickey Harte has moved on to his dream job in Offaly.

Soon, very very soon, like Harte, Paddy Tally will move on to his dream job as well, leaving Derry people to pick up the pieces. If he doesn’t, we will quickly be in Division Four.