If we consider the football so far this year – national league and provincial championships – it is a much shorter list to compile the poor games than it is the good ones, that really is something.
Salivating over your own game is something for the hurling fraternity, us of the big ball code are obviously much more predisposed to bemoaning our code than seeing the positives. These last few weeks, even with plenty of teams setting up defensively, the games have been much more than the clichéd 'intriguing'.
The provincial competitions have undoubtedly received a much-needed boost over the past month yet over the next few weeks their increasing irrelevance in the overall story of the summer will, I feel, become clear.
For the key big hitters, the perception is this stage of the year is what they’ve been building for. Dublin’s scheduling of their training camp for the past week and Jack O’Connor’s ‘the real championship starts now’ comment after Kerry’s Munster win says it all about their mindset.
That eyes-on-the-prize focus will be all the clearer in these opening group games where the value of first place is a clear learning point from last year.
Of course, sods law has meant that Galway and Donegal, winners of the more competitive provincials, have also landed into the toughest opening games. Those ties against Derry and Tyrone respectively have plenty of potential to remove the sheen from their newly gathered silverware.
First up this weekend Derry re-enter the fray against Galway in Salthill. As the attention, hype and glamour was falling on the provincial finals, Derry have been away refocusing their attentions.
I’ve been there before with Mickey Harte, he knows better than anyone how to circle the wagons and come out fighting. He knows the rocket fuel that a sense of something to prove can be and how valuable the fresh memory of a sickening, stinging defeat is in sharpening a team’s hunger.
Both teams, it could be said, have taken shots of very different medicine. Galway – confidence, Derry – humility. While at first glance those are opposites, both are important ingredients in any successful team and, it could be argued, both got exactly what could serve them best.
Ironically, it was Galway who gave Derry their last ‘bad’ defeat prior to that Donegal game. That quarter-final defeat back in 2022 looked like it had popped the Derry balloon under Rory Gallagher. Their defensive and counter attacking game plan was exposed and ran out of ideas against the Tribesmen and were a beaten docket well before the end.
Derry went back to the drawing board and came back with their ingenious form of blanket attack. It was brave and served to bully teams into shapes and positions they did not want to be in. While they lost last year’s semi-final to Kerry, they emerged with significant credit and have pushed on this year more confident than ever.
That is, until the wheels came off against Donegal.
Now its Galway again. Damian Comer tore the Oak Leaf County to shreds in one of his best displays recently in Croke Park and going by his Connaught final display, the man is back at his best just in time to potentially repeat the dose.
Derry have had a slight changing of the guard defensively and while Eoin McEvoy is a stunningly accomplished footballer for his age, it would appear a big role of the dice to ask him to take on Comer.
The loss of Padraig McGrogan is significant when looking at the challenge Derry must take on. Chrissy McKaigue has not been at his best and the possibility that the years are eventually catching up with him will be there until he produces his previous levels which made him such a renowned foil against the best forwards in the game.
In midfield, the Glass and Rodgers partnership was seen as one of the best in the game and the duo will have been irked at the way their midfield patch was plundered so successfully by Donegal. They still look stronger than anything Galway will put together in that direct space but Galway are more about the middle third than a dominant midfield pair. The likes of Sean Kelly, Johnny Maher, Johnny Heaney, Paul Conroy, Cillian McDaid and Matthew Tierney gives them ample ball-winning ability even before we factor in Comer coming out the way he so effectively did against Mayo.
Much has been made of Derry’s stick or twist moment with regards their high press kickout game. While I think it will remain very much part of their play I don’t think they’ll be as wedded to it as previously.
Of all days to be a bit more cautious, the risk of being left open against the threat of Comer, Walsh and Finnerty will surely be enough to make Derry think again if they were for a second thinking of brass necking it and sticking to their guns.
At the opposite end, Galway sat back against Mayo and will feel it worked well for them. Having seen the success of Donegal’s tight defensive approach against Derry they will presumably set up similarly.
There is a note of caution here though. Galway’s defence against Mayo coughed up plenty of openings and will need to be much more organised and resistant to getting moved about the place.
Even against that ultra-packed defence against Donegal, Derry still got 34 shots off. They had a bad day in front of the posts and certainly the pressure had an element to do with that but for me they remain phenomenally good at cutting a team open.
Derry punch holes, find gaps, move you in and out of shape and play keep-ball under pressure better than just about anyone in the game. It sounds daft but take those four break-out goals out of it and Derry’s game plan still holds up. They’ll tighten at the back and rejig their kickout press but after that, I am fully expecting their spell away from the hype will end just as the ‘real championship’ kicks in.
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