O’Boyle can’t wait to get stuck in as Barton removes the shackles
Derry go into the f irst of three Tyrone clashes with fresh outlook
IT IS the trilogy that is likely to have every neutral looking away. Derry and Tyrone meet today in a McKenna Cup contest in Owenbeg that is the least significant of three clashes over the next five months – a Division 2 League meeting on March 5 and Championship opener on May 22 will go some distance to defining both of their seasons – but it is a series that will feel little love from the outside world.
At the best of times, these Ulster rivals produced grim spectacles when they got it on, but last spring when taking on Dublin in Croke Park they separately attracted all kinds of heat for not being game for a slaughtering.
If Tyrone’s set-up in holding Dublin to a 1-9 to 0-12 draw sparked criticism, Derry’s parking of a fleet of buses in losing 0-8 to 0-4 invoked fury and hyperbole, with Jarlath Burns memorably labelling their display the ‘death’ of football.
By the end of the spring both had not only been relegated, but did so boasting scoring returns so impoverished that only Wicklow managed less in the entire League.
But while Tyrone shook themsleves in the summer, finding their mojo and a run of results that took them to the Championship’s last four, Derry remained faithfully shackled to a system under Brian McIver that starved them off scores.
They managed an average of 12 points per match over four games in the Championship, a return so weak that only the game’s disenfranchised – London, Leitrim, Limerick, Waterford and Carlow – managed less.
It exacted quite a price, most notably a shot at ending a 17-year wait for the Anglo Celt Cup, when they held Donegal over the edge in the semi-final last June in Clones but declined to go for the jugular.
Despite the obvious discomfort that their big two-man full-forward line of Eoin Bradley and Cailean O’Boyle had caused the Donegal defence early on in that evening – the latter’s brace of points had made him his team’s top scorer from play – when the need was greatest in the critical final quarter as Derry chased down a two-point deficit, both were called ashore.
It is perhaps little wonder then that when O’Boyle heard of his new manager Damian Barton’s commitment to play to a more expansive game-plan this season that he smacked his lips in approval.
O’Boyle won’t be in action for Derry this afternoon (he is tied to UUJ, who played Cavan last night in Breffni Park, for the purposes of this competition) but he will be there when it matters at the end of the month when the Oak Leafers get their League campaign up and running against Fermanagh.
The prospect of being an inside forward on a team playing on the front foot again means that he can hardly wait.
‘It’s something the players will definitely welcome,’ insists O’Boyle.
‘The way the football is played with defensive strategies, for the likes of myself standing in the fullforward line, you’re playing there with everybody in your side of the field and you’re lucky to get two or three touches a game.
‘You might get no touch of the ball and then you’re the worst player in the world.
‘Definitely from a forward’s point of view, a more attack-minded style would be more than welcome.
‘The way we played (last year) is something that we have never done.
‘I know the crowd and people you talk to are frustrated with Derry’s style this past few years because we’re nearly adapting to other teams to try and limit the scoring, whereas if go out and play our own football, you never know what could happen.
‘It will be a real delight to have the shackles off your back rather than when you’re sitting with five defenders around you and you’re made to look like the worst in the world. If we bring an attacking style, I think Derry can go toe-to-toe with the best teams in Ulster. ‘You don’t want to be standing there getting no touches of the ball and then being taken off. It’s not the way football should be played, in my eyes.
‘I was brought on to the panel when it was free-flowing football and could do whatever you wanted.
‘Derry, with the talent we have, can do well playing a more attacking game.’ says O’Boyle.
Barton (below), in his first game in charge, was good to his word last weekend when he invoked Derry’s license to thrill, and the players responded by racking up 4-16.
HOWEVER, an opening round preseason game against Division 4 opponents in Antrim provided context, and more importantly their concession of 2-12 was a reminder that there is a price to be paid for such bravado. Even so, O’Boyle is adamant that it is the way to go.
‘When you’re up in Division 1, you have to adapt your style of play to limit what teams can do against you because you know what Dublin and those teams can do. There was a lot of abuse after the Dublin game, which I played in, but you have to do that in order to gain points.
‘I know it was horrible to watch, it was horrible to play in too, but it was something we were told to do and had to do.
‘I’d say this year you’ll see a more offensive style of play and hopefully it will open the eyes of a few people to watch.
‘The new manager is the type of boy where he won’t care if there are 15 of the best players on the other team. He will say “we’re going out to play our own style of play”.
‘And it will be welcomed, because there is plenty of talent in Derry. It’s just been restricted in terms of what we can do,’ argues O’Boyle.
The sense is that they Derry needed not just a new voice but also a new way.
While Barton might qualify as an intercounty rookie in terms of management experience, he brings to the table, along with his assistant Tony Scullion, something that time served cannot buy.
‘Those boys have been there and done it and they know what it takes.
‘Obviously football has developed in terms of a style of play since then, but he has been managing in Derry for years and elsewhere and he knows what it takes to win because he is a winner himself.
‘Hopefully it is good because we can look up to him knowing he has an All-Ireland medal and has been there and done that. Whenever he speaks, it’s going to be gospel to us boys because a lot of us are sitting with no medals to choose from and he has a handful of them, so of course we’re going to listen to him, because he’s been there and got the t-shirt.’
Damien won’t care if there are 15 of the best players on the other team