No point in playing inter-county if you don’t give it a real go

PROVINCIALS DO STILL MATTER... TO SOME

2023-04-15 - EAMON McGEE

OVER the years, nobody moaned louder than me about the provincial Championships.

I was convinced they’d had their day. To me, they’d gone the way of the dinosaurs and belonged in ancient history.

The provincial councils annoyed me, most of all. I felt they were standing in the way of the inevitable.

But last weekend made me think again. Maybe I don’t have all the answers...

I watched two games in full – Roscommon v Mayo and New York v Leitrim – and couldn’t take my eyes off them.

Hole

Both of the favourites found themselves in a hole and weren’t able to get out.

Both Mayo and Leitrim had the tools to dig themselves out but weren’t able to do so.

This is something I’m seeing more and more in the modern game. So many teams aren’t able to think their way out of tricky situations.

Just think back to the penalty that Mayo gave away and Leitrim’s final attack against New York.

What stood out was the lack of thinking, the lack of control, the lack of composure.

Mayo and Letrim kept doing the same things over and over – the wrong things – and that fed oxygen to Roscommon and New York.

Down in Munster, Clare caught Cork out too and there were so many games on that I’d say interesting things and performances went unnoticed.

There’s a huge amount of games in a week’s time, and the hurling starts then as well.

I think that throws up a huge negative with the condensed season. There is so much going on that it’s easy to miss things, and some mightn’t be getting the credit or coverage they deserve.

There’s no complete u-turn coming – I’m still not convinced that the provincial Championships have a future, and I definitely feel that we’ll soon see that they’ve diminished in importance.

Are Mayo no longer AllIreland contenders because Roscommon beat them? Not at all. Indeed, it would be a shock if they don’t go further in the Championship than the

Rossies.

Arguing

If I was still a Donegal player, I think I’d be focusing completely on the All-Ireland series and be arguing for tailoring the training towards that. With the best will in the world, Donegal aren’t going to win Ulster this year – but if they focused on what is happening down the road and build momentum towards that, it might greatly help them in 2024.

Donegal are one of a group of teams that have won a lot of provincial titles in the modern era and it doesn’t mean as much to that group.

But teams have different goals. Look at what winning Ulster meant to Derry and Cavan in recent years. Armagh would love one this summer.

It’s not that long since Roscommon won Connacht but, usually it’s a carve up between Mayo and Galway, so they’d really be craving one.

If your level is Tailteann Cup, so be it, but give the competition a real go. What’s the point of playing intercounty football if you don’t?

Massive

Of the four Ulster teams in action this weekend, it would give Monaghan, Derry and Fermanagh a massive lift if they were to become Ulster champions.

But I don’t think it would make any difference to Tyrone.

No matter who else is in their round robin group in the All-Ireland series, Tyrone will back themselves.

Monaghan would have that kind of mentality too but I feel the current group that they have – and management – could do with the push that an Ulster title would give them.

Even though Derry are Ulster champions, they’ve been honest about their intentions and the feeling that they need to be top seeds in one of the All-Ireland series groups. So they’ll be going hard at it.

Fermanagh haven’t won an Ulster so it would be huge for them if they got one.

What happens in Healy Park tomorrow will be gripping and there’s likely to be very little between Tyrone and Monaghan

coming down the final stretch.

These are two teams that can be hard to figure out at times.

Over the last three years, Tyrone have gone from good to awful to decent to good to brilliant to average to good to decent to average to good... You get the picture.

Route

But during that sequence, they did win an All-Ireland, taking a very tough route. When you look at the players they have, the inconsistency is hard to figure out.

Even earlier in the League, they looked to be in big relegation trouble but they weren’t far away from making the final in the end.

I watched them a few times in the League and it was night and day.

In one game, you’d see opponents walking through their defence to stick the ball in their net without a hand being placed on them.

In another game, the ferocity of their defending would be disciplined, aggressive and intense.

That same contrast from game to game was to be seen in attack.

With Monaghan, there’s been a lot of transition and most of the main men from the last decade have moved on.

They still have that grittiness that you always associate with Monaghan but they were pretty poor in a fair few of their League games.

Goalkeeper Rory Beggan has been hugely important to them but he is becoming more error prone and seems to be going through a crisis of confidence

That they escaped relegation was a lot to do with Conor McManus and Darren Hughes. But they’re both 35 now – how often can Monaghan turn to them to dig them out of a hole?

Ronan McNamee is well equipped to limit the influence of McManus and I think Tyrone will edge this one.

Spare

Derry will beat Fermanagh with a bit to spare, but it’s interesting how the thinking about the current Ulster champions has changed.

They were being talked up as serious All-Ireland contenders not that long ago, but that changed as the League wore on.

Even though Derry got promotion to the top flight, their performance in the Division 2 final defeat to Dublin showed up their limitations.

Comparisons have been made between us in 2011 and 2012 and the current Derry team.

But we went from really defensive in making the breakthrough in Ulster in 2011 to having a serious cutting edge in attack a year later that meant we got our hands on Sam Maguire.

I don’t see that development in Derry. They don’t look to have the forwards you need to win an All-Ireland.

Fermanagh are at home in Brewster Park and they won’t go into this game without confidence, but it’s impossible to make a case for them winning. Fermanagh’s priority has to be the Tailteann Cup and, if you build momentum there, who knows?