The diagonal ball – Clarke on the success of the angled pass

THERE are 61 minutes and 34 seconds on the clock in the 2002 All-Ireland final at Croke Park when Armagh’s Benny Tierney’s catches a shot from Kerry midfielder Darragh Ó Sé that has dropped short.

The Mullaghbawn goalkeeper bounces, toe-taps and punts a pass out to Barry O’Hagan who does well to get up and slap the ball down into in to the chest of Aidan O’Rourke.

O’Rourke and O’Hagan play a one-two taking the former to midfield, and after a bounce and a peek up at the situation at the Hill 16 end, the Dromintee man delivers a fantastic diagonal ball that is snagged by Stevie McDonnell.

Twenty-two seconds after Tierney took possession, McDonnell fires over with his left to put Armagh 1-12 to 0-14 ahead.

No other score would be registered in the final and Armagh would win their first – and to date only – All-Ireland title.

That Joe Kernan team has been labelled as dour, robotic, intense, you name it, but their trademark, and the key to their success, was the almost flawless execution of the diagonal pass from the half-back and midfield area into their dangerous full-forward line.

Ronan Clarke had been drafted into the squad the season previous under Brian Canavan and Brian McAlinden, but 2002 would be the year when he would burst onto the scene.

The Pearse Og man and McDonnell were the chief beneficiaries of those long deliveries, and the then 19-year-old was eventually named Young Player of the Year as a result.

In today’s game Clarke’s talent would be underused, but he is confident that some team can perfect the tactic again and bring it back into the conscious of the Gaelic football public.

For now though, all he can do is reflect on how well it worked for that Orchard county side. Unsurprisingly, natural talent was accompanied by hours and hours of work on the training pitch.

“We played that system for a long, long period of time,” said Clarke.

“It’s very hard to defend against it even if you have someone playing the sweeper. If you practice it, and we did train on it every night, then you really can do so much with it.

“The likes of Aidan O’Rourke there, Andrew McCann, ‘Hughesy’ (Kieran Hughes) – these are lads who could hit 60-yard passes crossfield and that used to cancel the sweeper out.

“You could be doubled-marked but the ball was so good that you could catch the ball in front of your man. Then that would leave you in a one-on-one situation for a couple of seconds and you could get the shot away or have someone coming off the shoulder.

“When the boys saw the ball coming in, they knew that me and Stevie had a chance of getting it so they would be coming off your shoulder at pace.”

As well as possessing some of the best kick-passing defenders since the turn of the Millennium, that ’02 side was also fortunate that Clarke and McDonnell’s handling was of an equally high standard.

Both players had special handling skills that set them apart too. Clarke had an ability to cleanly win ball around his ankles that had come in too low.

McDonnell, meanwhile, had a great knack of winning the ball over his shoulder as he was on the run.

“We had no other option, if you couldn’t get the ball you’d be off quick as a flash,” Clarke said with a laugh.

“It just came naturally to me, and it just came naturally to Stevie. We had an understanding of each other’s game and that was important.

“It worked well for us over the years and thankfully we had plenty of success. You always knew the ball was coming straight to you and that’s how the whole thing worked.

“That’s what we kept doing in training, you’d go through difference scenarios.

“You can’t legislate for what other teams were doing though, it was up to them to stop us and try and counteract it.

“We got it down to a fine art and it was very hard to play against.

“Teams found it very hard because we had so much talent on our deliveries, even Paul McGrane and John McEntee at centre-forward, John Mc could ping you a ball.

“Each player could win their own ball and turn nothing into something.”

Nineteen years on and the game is very different now. Those lightning quick deliveries are few and far between and it’s hard to argue that Clarke’ s game could flourish as much as it did back then.

The new Naomh Séamas manager hasn’t given up the ghost just yet though, and he feels that it will take one team breaking through with the tactic to get it back in fashion.

“It’s more or less about possession football now,” said Clarke.

“The way teams are set up with everyone sitting back on their own 65-metre line makes it more difficult.

“It’s going to take one team to fine-tune that ball again and it will still cause a lot of trouble.

“Football constantly evolves and if that came back in and a team had a good crack with it, you’ll see other teams follow that example.

“I hope so anyway.”