NIALL: BACK TO BASICS

NIALL MORGAN’S weekend hasn’t exactly panned out as he might have expected.

He ought to have been tuning himself in for Tyrone’s Ulster semi-final against Monaghan tomorrow but Derry shredded that script in Omagh a fortnight ago.

And so, rather than gathering last night for a final run-through, they trained on Thursday night and will get together again today ahead of relaunching their season in the qualifiers next month.

It meant that the All Star goalkeeper could attend last night’s Gaelic Writers’ Association dinner in Dublin in conjunction with Wilson Hartnell, where he picked up another award as the 2021 Football Personality of the Year (below), a nod to his excellence on the field but also his effusiveness off it.

“We did a wee bit of training on it at the start of the year in terms of what to say and what not to say,” said Morgan of their media engagement. “You can be open and honest without being silly and saying something stupid.”

And while Morgan says that “we do know who we can trust and we stick to those journalists”, the observations of some members of the fourth estate add fuel to their fire as they look to defend their All-ireland title having already relinquished supremacy in Ulster.

He added: “I know the narrative among some journalists last year was that we won by fluke. We don’t believe that. Personally I don’t believe in luck at all, I believe you get what you deserve and you get what you work for.

“Going back to Derry, they worked hard and deserved their win and there was no luck involved and we would say the same about last year.

“We’re just going to have to work a bit harder in terms of our training and in terms of our application and what we’re doing skills-wise. We need to return a wee bit to the basics.”