Veteran Haran still has goals to achieve
PRIOR to last weekend’s Donegal SFC final, John Haran found himself the target of some slagging on social media. Pádraic Joyce and John Divilly — teammates on the all-conquering St Jarlath’s side of 1994 — playfully wondered how much Haran could offer at this advanced stage of his career.
He answered that question last Sunday, collecting the man-of-the-match award two days before his 38th birthday. And with Donegal football on a high after Jim McGuinness’s four successful years at the helm, Haran hopes that St Eunan’s can maintain that feel-good factor by beating Fermanagh’s Roslea Shamrocks today.
‘With Crossmaglen and St Gall’s both losing last week and Ballinderry losing the Derry final, the big-hitters are gone from Ulster so everyone sees this as a great opportunity. But we can’t take anything for granted.
‘Our record in Ulster has been poor. This will be my seventh Ulster Championship campaign and I only won one game (against Tyrone’s Clonoe in 2008) in the previous six. But we have always been drawn away from home. This game is on in our home ground, O’Donnell Park, so hopefully people will come out and support us.’
Haran believes this is the most satisfying of all his Donegal SFC titles, not only because they beat neighbours Glenswilly but also because he contemplated hanging up his boots last year.
‘I was going to walk away but I talked to a few people, like Charlie Mulgrew, and they convinced me to keep playing as long as I can. I’ve been very fortunate with injuries in my career, I didn’t get too many — this year, I actually broke my collarbone during the summer and was out for 10 weeks, that was my first major injury. But that injury actually helped me because it let me rest my body for a long time,’ Haran explained.
Despite being in the twilight of his career, the former Donegal player proved he could still do a shift in midfield when an early injury to Kevin Rafferty forced a switch onto Glenswilly’s two-time All-Star Neil Gallagher.
Haran puts much of the success down to Maxi Curran, who took over Eunan’s at the start of the year. The current Donegal Under 21 manager, Curran was part of the backroom team for the first three years of McGuinness’s tenure and is tipped to join new boss Rory Gallagher’s management team.
‘Maxi has worked some magic with this team. We lost a few league games at the start of the year, but he was trying things out and he kept saying that it was all about the championship. That’s how it turned out.
‘Maxi’s philosophy is to keep going until the end and the boys have really bought into that. We kicked 13 wides last week in the county final but the heads never dropped. We just kept going, kept creating the chances, and we know if we create the same number of chances in the next game we will have a good chance of winning it.’
Haran also believes Curran’s influence is evident in the team’s preparation ahead of their clash with Roslea, who are managed by Mark Harte, son of Mickey.
‘In the past, maybe when Eunan’s won a county title, the celebrations might have lasted a few days and the party would have kept going. But everyone was there for the recovery session on Monday and we had our feet firmly on the ground. We have another game now and a chance to do something in Ulster and that’s what everyone wants to do.’