Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
PADDY’S DEJA VU BUT DERRY UP AGAINST IT
TEN years on from their last Championship meeting, Mayo and Derry both find themselves in similar terrain. Back in 2007, like now, Mayo had lost the previous year’s All-ireland final and been knocked out of the Connacht Championship by Galway. Derry’s season was like many others before and since an early Ulster exit but the promise of a decent qualifier run. A decade ago they made it all the way to the All-ireland quarter-final, losing narrowly to Dublin, after seeing off Mayo with 10 points to spare at Celtic Park en route and sounding the death knell for that particular team. Paddy Bradley (inset) put down many fine summers for Derry and, having been nominated five times, finally won his only All-star that year. He recalls: “I remember it was a fairly wet day. We won the game quite handily. “I lived with David Brady in Chicago, played a summer of football out there with him. That was Ciaran Mcdonald’s last game for Mayo, he came on as a sub. Ciaran Mcdonald was a player I loved to watch. I think everybody loved to watch Ciaran. “We had a very, very strong panel back then in Derry and I remember that year, there was a good buzz, a good camaraderie, we got a run of three or four back door games. “The way the back door worked out for us that year, teams fell nicely, every team was just a nice step up from the next team and then obviously we lost to Dublin in the end but it was a great summer.” Bradley concedes that the standard of footballer available to Derry manager Damian Barton isn’t quite at the same level now, but neither has it fallen by so much that they can’t trouble Mayo. “There’s quality players in Derry. Maybe not the same quality there was seven or eight years ago. “I would have liked one more fixture before they drew the likes of a Mayo. “Whether the players fully believe they’re capable of mixing it with the best, we’ll not know until Saturday but the potential is always there for Derry.”