No luck is needed as Derry see off Farney with ease
IGallagher has high-end players to work with
F nothing else, what happened in the Athletic Grounds yesterday binned the notion of Derry being a team clutching a four-leaf clover.
Much of the narrative that dominated the build-up to the Ulster semi-final was centred on how Derry’s secret was out, how Tyrone had been caught unawares and, how in the end, Monaghan’s Division 1 class would prevail.
It is safe to assume as they eyeball Donegal in the final — the same opponents they last met when they reached a provincial decider in 2011 — any loose talk about the Oak Leafers having over-reached has now been hushed.
Adding to their comfort is that the man who was one of the main architects of their heartbreak in that final 11 years ago is on their side now.
Rory Gallagher has made history by becoming the first manager to lead three different counties into an Ulster final, having previously done the trick with Donegal and Fermanagh but critically he still has to get over the winning provincial line as a manager.
This, though, may well represent his best chance.
The fundamentals of Gallagher’s game-plan has not changed over the last decade but yesterday that Monaghan were helpless when exposed to it.
Just because you know it, does not mean you can beat it.
And that is a warning that might send a chill down the spine of more than Donegal — the many who believed that the blueprint of a blanket defence weaponised by speedy and smart players on the counter had been torched as a way to win big matches belonged to the past.
Donegal will recognises that more than most because this felt like a mirror image of their All-Ireland winning season a decade ago, a team invested to a man in defending collectively behind the ball, with the nous, speed and ability to draw blood on the counter.
It was so effective that the only question left for Seamus ‘Banty’ McEnaney to ponder post match was when exactly the pulse left his Monaghan team.
It could have been as early as the 12th minute, when the outstanding Gareth McKinless powered through the middle, leaving Monaghan’s veteran midfielder Darren Hughes flatfooted and shaking his head even before the ball had hit the net. A five-point lead that early in the game should never feel terminal, but this did.
Perhaps if the excellent Ethan Doherty had not somehow clawed the ball away from Michael Bannigan at the end of the first quarter to deny a certain Monaghan goal, the losers might have cleared their head early enough to have had a shot at saving themselves.
In truth, though, that feels a little like wishful thinking.
And Doherty’s intervention also in a reminder that while Gallagher rightly will take so much credit for the resurgence in Derry’s fortunes, it would not be possible if he did not possess genuine high-end quality players to work with in the first instance.
Doherty is just one of those, along with the likes of Chrissy McKaigue, Brendan Rogers, Conor McCluskey, Conor Glass and Shane McGuigan who would encounter few problems finding a place on any team in the land.
That also echoes Donegal a decade as the likes of Neil McGee, Karl Lacey, Frank McGlynn and Colm Anthony McFadden did not suddenly become good footballers when Jim McGuinness and Gallagher walked through the door. They always were, they just needed a platform to showcase those talents.
In some ways Benny Heron’s journey this summer echoes somewhat of McFadden’s Indian summer when he defied those who doubted him within the county to reveal himself to be a champion.
Heron, as with the rest of his Derry team-mates, are some way from that reaching that destination, but this summer has been a redemption for a player questioned as to whether he had an inter-county future.
Following up from his threepoint haul against Tyrone, he was the player responsible for ensuring that Monaghan’s chase would be utterly futile; his first goal ensuring the winners enjoyed a seven-point lead — 2-7 to 0-6 — at the interval, while his second nine minutes from the end restoring that margin of comfort.
And, ultimately the fact that Derry have taken out both of last year’s Ulster finalists with this degree of comfort also underlines the challenge now facing Donegal.
Because Derry have not got lucky.
It is just that they have become very good.