By Paddy Heaney
First Published March 31, 2009
DURING a radio broadcast on October 1, 1939, Winston Churchill famously said it was difficult to predict the actions of the Russian electorate because the Soviets were “a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”.
Churchill could also have been talking about the current crop of Derry footballers.
Consider the following facts. On Sunday, March 8, 20-year-old James Kielt stood on Pairc Sean de Brun and pointed two sideline kicks, one with the outside of his left boot from the left wing, the other with his instep from the right wing.
Six days later on March 14, Eoin Bradley was in Parnell Park. From a distance further than Kielt’s, he also thumped over a sideline kick with the outside of his left boot. A few minutes later, he was presented with a similar opportunity and he performed the remarkable feat once again.
How many counties in Ireland possess two players who could convert two sideline kicks in the same game? Let’s also remember that Paddy Bradley and Enda Muldoon are more than capable of the same task.
Counties like Fermanagh crave such outrageous talent.
Monaghan would point to Paul Finlay, but they’d struggle to produce a second marksman of such quality.
And yet, a limited, but plucky, Fermanagh side deservedly beat Derry in last year’s Ulster Championship. Monaghan then dumped the Oak Leafers out of the Qualifiers.
How could Derry, a team that has beaten Kerry in a League final, and Tyrone and Armagh in the Championship, get ousted by such middleweight opposition?
The conundrum that is Derry football was wonderfully illustrated at Healy Park on Saturday night when a side in possession of two players who can convert sideline kicks failed to score from a 13-metre free that could have won the game.
As the Yanks would say: ‘Go figure.’ Nevertheless, despite their failure to win the Ulster title for over a decade, Derry are being tipped as the side most likely to dislodge Armagh as Tyrone’s biggest rival in Ulster.
The rationale is that new manager Damian Cassidy will harness the existing talent pool by getting Derry to execute an orchestrated and effective gameplan.
Cassidy’s start with Derry has been encouraging. He has repeatedly insisted that he wants Derry to play to a system.
Reports from the training ground reveal that conditioned games are standard practice.
‘Pace’ and ‘purpose’ are the key words. Consequently, a five-yard ‘purposeless’ pass can be punished with a free-kick to the other side.
Early results have fuelled further optimism. League victories against Mayo, Westmeath and Dublin were achieved without a host of first choice players.
It was also notable that when Derry were allowed to impose their style of play against an
inferior Westmeath and an off-guard Dublin, they looked irresistible.
More difficulties arose when Derry encountered opposition from a higher echelon. Former Irish News columnist Damien Barton always maintained in his column that when teams come under pressure, or get tired, they “revert to type”.
Barton’s adage was certainly true when Derry played Kerry and Tyrone. When faced with a physically strong Kerry side and a well-organised Tyrone outfit, Cassidy’s charges quickly returned to their default mode.
The first half of Saturday night’s game between Derry and Tyrone was like watching a repeat of last year’s Championship game against Fermanagh at the same venue.
Mickey Harte got Philip Jordan to drop off Paul Murphy and sweep in front of the two Bradleys. And if Derry dithered at all, then Jordan was quickly surrounded by a dozen reinforcements.
As the first half wore on, Derry ‘reverted to type.’ Their play was aimless. Tyrone set up a cordon around the scoring zone and Derry looked like basketball players passing around the edges of the key, but were unable to make any headway. They scored just one point during this period.
The pleasing thing from a Derry fan’s point of view is that they weren’t subjected to the torture of watching their side being tactically outwitted for the entire duration of the game.
At half-time, Cassidy got out his flipchart, read out the match stats (Derry were dispossessed 21 times in the fist half), and asked his players if they thought they were implementing the plan. Derry were transformed after the interval. They scored five points without reply and could easily have won the game.
But it would be extremely foolish to get carried away. Saturday’s game in Healy Park demonstrated that while Derry are improving, they are still a considerable distance behind Tyrone.
At this stage, the All-Ireland champions hold two crucial advantages over their neighbours.
Firstly, Mickey Harte has already programmed his players. They don’t require half-time lectures because the system is now written into their DNA.
On Saturday night, Harte fielded a skeletal side. He started without Brian Dooher, Ryan McMenamin, Justin and Joe McMahon, Enda McGinley and Stephen O’Neill – yet the replacements performed the same roles and proved to be more than a match for Derry.
Secondly, Harte has a much larger pool of quality players than Cassidy, or indeed any other manager in Ulster. Harte used 29 players in last year’s Championship.
Smaller counties like Derry just don’t have this spread of talent and are not as well equipped to deal with injuries, loss of form and suspensions.
All things considered, the bookies appear to be correct in their assessment of this year’s race for the Ulster title. Rated as 2/1 shots, Tyrone are the favourites and they are followed by Armagh (9/2), Donegal (9/2), Derry (5/1), Monaghan (6/1), Down (16/1), Cavan (16/1), Fermanagh (16/1) and Antrim (50/1).
Three All-Ireland football finals have shown us that when it gets hot and heavy, Tyrone stay on message.
With just one League game remaining and eight weeks before their first round fixture against Monaghan, Damian Cassidy’s men are still veering off the script. His players have a lot of learning to do in a relatively short space of time.
And learn they must, because Derry’s record during the past decade proves that players who can convert sideline kicks are merely a sweet luxury, whereas players who have a system, and can stick to it, are an absolute necessity.
Churchill could also have been talking about the current crop of Derry footballers.
Consider the following facts. On Sunday, March 8, 20-year-old James Kielt stood on Pairc Sean de Brun and pointed two sideline kicks, one with the outside of his left boot from the left wing, the other with his instep from the right wing.
Six days later on March 14, Eoin Bradley was in Parnell Park. From a distance further than Kielt’s, he also thumped over a sideline kick with the outside of his left boot. A few minutes later, he was presented with a similar opportunity and he performed the remarkable feat once again.
How many counties in Ireland possess two players who could convert two sideline kicks in the same game? Let’s also remember that Paddy Bradley and Enda Muldoon are more than capable of the same task.
Counties like Fermanagh crave such outrageous talent.
Monaghan would point to Paul Finlay, but they’d struggle to produce a second marksman of such quality.
And yet, a limited, but plucky, Fermanagh side deservedly beat Derry in last year’s Ulster Championship. Monaghan then dumped the Oak Leafers out of the Qualifiers.
How could Derry, a team that has beaten Kerry in a League final, and Tyrone and Armagh in the Championship, get ousted by such middleweight opposition?
The conundrum that is Derry football was wonderfully illustrated at Healy Park on Saturday night when a side in possession of two players who can convert sideline kicks failed to score from a 13-metre free that could have won the game.
As the Yanks would say: ‘Go figure.’ Nevertheless, despite their failure to win the Ulster title for over a decade, Derry are being tipped as the side most likely to dislodge Armagh as Tyrone’s biggest rival in Ulster.
The rationale is that new manager Damian Cassidy will harness the existing talent pool by getting Derry to execute an orchestrated and effective gameplan.
Cassidy’s start with Derry has been encouraging. He has repeatedly insisted that he wants Derry to play to a system.
Reports from the training ground reveal that conditioned games are standard practice.
‘Pace’ and ‘purpose’ are the key words. Consequently, a five-yard ‘purposeless’ pass can be punished with a free-kick to the other side.
Early results have fuelled further optimism. League victories against Mayo, Westmeath and Dublin were achieved without a host of first choice players.
It was also notable that when Derry were allowed to impose their style of play against an
inferior Westmeath and an off-guard Dublin, they looked irresistible.
More difficulties arose when Derry encountered opposition from a higher echelon. Former Irish News columnist Damien Barton always maintained in his column that when teams come under pressure, or get tired, they “revert to type”.
Barton’s adage was certainly true when Derry played Kerry and Tyrone. When faced with a physically strong Kerry side and a well-organised Tyrone outfit, Cassidy’s charges quickly returned to their default mode.
The first half of Saturday night’s game between Derry and Tyrone was like watching a repeat of last year’s Championship game against Fermanagh at the same venue.
Mickey Harte got Philip Jordan to drop off Paul Murphy and sweep in front of the two Bradleys. And if Derry dithered at all, then Jordan was quickly surrounded by a dozen reinforcements.
As the first half wore on, Derry ‘reverted to type.’ Their play was aimless. Tyrone set up a cordon around the scoring zone and Derry looked like basketball players passing around the edges of the key, but were unable to make any headway. They scored just one point during this period.
The pleasing thing from a Derry fan’s point of view is that they weren’t subjected to the torture of watching their side being tactically outwitted for the entire duration of the game.
At half-time, Cassidy got out his flipchart, read out the match stats (Derry were dispossessed 21 times in the fist half), and asked his players if they thought they were implementing the plan. Derry were transformed after the interval. They scored five points without reply and could easily have won the game.
But it would be extremely foolish to get carried away. Saturday’s game in Healy Park demonstrated that while Derry are improving, they are still a considerable distance behind Tyrone.
At this stage, the All-Ireland champions hold two crucial advantages over their neighbours.
Firstly, Mickey Harte has already programmed his players. They don’t require half-time lectures because the system is now written into their DNA.
On Saturday night, Harte fielded a skeletal side. He started without Brian Dooher, Ryan McMenamin, Justin and Joe McMahon, Enda McGinley and Stephen O’Neill – yet the replacements performed the same roles and proved to be more than a match for Derry.
Secondly, Harte has a much larger pool of quality players than Cassidy, or indeed any other manager in Ulster. Harte used 29 players in last year’s Championship.
Smaller counties like Derry just don’t have this spread of talent and are not as well equipped to deal with injuries, loss of form and suspensions.
All things considered, the bookies appear to be correct in their assessment of this year’s race for the Ulster title. Rated as 2/1 shots, Tyrone are the favourites and they are followed by Armagh (9/2), Donegal (9/2), Derry (5/1), Monaghan (6/1), Down (16/1), Cavan (16/1), Fermanagh (16/1) and Antrim (50/1).
Three All-Ireland football finals have shown us that when it gets hot and heavy, Tyrone stay on message.
With just one League game remaining and eight weeks before their first round fixture against Monaghan, Damian Cassidy’s men are still veering off the script. His players have a lot of learning to do in a relatively short space of time.
And learn they must, because Derry’s record during the past decade proves that players who can convert sideline kicks are merely a sweet luxury, whereas players who have a system, and can stick to it, are an absolute necessity.
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