Marc Ó Sé
There are only two ways to get protection on a GAA field
THE FOULING ON McHUGH IS BORDERING ON RIDICULOUS NOW DONEGAL DON’T HAVE THE ABILITY TO SHUT OUT TYRONE
THERE are two ways you can seek protection on the football field, you either go down the hit-man route or you place your trust in the sheriff. You have probably heard this particular yarn before, but I will spin it one more time on popular request.
Back in 2007, in as tough a match as I have ever been involved in, we were left sore and bruised after a fierce All-Ireland quarter-final battle with Monaghan.
Dick Clerkin was their bruiser-inchief, he had a few scelps off Darragh and even Paul Galvin’s wrecked shoulder was put down to another run-in with the big Monaghan man.
Clerkin may well have been an innocent party, but Darragh gathered a file of grievances against him – which a subsequent All-Ireland triumph couldn’t convince him to drop – and he did the oddest thing.
At a time when he should have been wintering well, he declared himself available for a Railway Cup semi-final against Ulster. He ran through Clerkin first chance he got, and laid him low with a burst lip on the second opportunity.
He then promptly informed the Munster manager Seán Geaney at half-time that he wanted off ‘because he had done his bit’. It was a good move as an enraged Ulster team duly came out in the second half and kicked the living daylights out of Munster.
That’s one way of doing things, but Declan Bonner has chosen another. Rather than letting Michael Murphy loose in the McKenna Cup next January, with a list of offenders to put manners on, he made a 999 call.
Not for the first time this summer, he has called for referees to provide his chief playmaker – the outstanding Ryan McHugh – with some protection.
Some may accuse the Donegal manager of putting pressure on today’s referee Joe McQuillan and argue that he is engaging in mind games. I don’t agree. I have watched all summer as McHugh has been serially fouled, to the point that it bordered on the ridiculous against Down and yet it persisted last time out against Roscommon.
I have nothing against physical football, but the ‘bullying” off the ball of players is not acceptable, and neither is serial targeting of individual players.
It happens in other codes – when Ronan O’Gara was in his out-half prime, he was hit late and often and I still wince from my boyhood memories of Diego Maradona being lined up for one career-wrecking tackle after another when watching Serie A was the height of sporting sophistication in west Kerry.
But just because it happens in other codes, does not make it acceptable. Without doubt, it does not happen with the same frequency and same degree of tolerance as it does in our sport.
So, yes, I think Bonner’s way is the right one because players need protection in the here and now and not blood vengeance taken in deep winter which is too little far too late.
But if the Donegal manager was right to highlight the treatment being dished out to McHugh, it also suggests that he knows what is coming down the tracks at Ballybofey today. And, if he is fearful, he may have good reason to be. Not because Tyrone will arrive with menace on their minds – I think the accusations levelled against them in my time were exaggerated and the current team have done little to earn such a reputation. Donegal should be concerned by their opponents’ ability to reduce a game of football to an arm-wrestle with a flick of their tactical flip chart. For all the talk about how Donegal and Tyrone have evolved, it won’t matter a jot today. Donegal have radically changed but they have not abandoned all
defensive structure while Tyrone have kept faith with theirs and, indeed, made it stronger.
This game will be every bit as claustrophobic as those games back in 2013 and ’15 in Ballybofey where defence ruled,.
That will play in Tyrone’s favour. The introduction of Frank Burns this year has added another layer of security to an already wellresourced, well organised defensive unit.
It will dictate how Donegal set up and you can be certain it will torch any fanciful notion of Murphy returning to the full-forward role in which he was so impressive against Roscommon.
This is going to be the polar opposite. Roscommon threw out a blanket for the first time in their lives, while the concept of massed defence is weaved into Tyrone’s DNA.
With Pádraig Hampsey shadowing him and Colm Cavanagh sitting directly in front, the chances of hitting Murphy with direct ball into the inside line sits somewhere between slim and none.
Instead, he will have to lend his shoulder to a wheel which will require a lot of pushing for very little gain.
I just don’t see how the likes of Jamie Brennan, Michael Langan or Odhrán MacNiallais – all fine technical footballers – will find the space to get off the shots they will need to get on the scoresheet.
And I don’t see McHugh, even if he is afforded the protection he rightly deserves, being able to find the space to make Donegal tick.
I look at the other end, and I am not convinced that Donegal possess the organisation or the personnel to shut out Tyrone.
They have coughed up too many goal chances – even against an attack as under-resourced as Roscommon’s – for my liking.
Added to that the likely absence of Eoghan Bán Gallagher – whose ball carrying skills would have been a huge asset today – as well as the incalculable loss that is Paddy McBrearty and it is hard to see, even allowing for that eight-year unbeaten record in Ballybofey, how they can get over the line here.
One final thing, Dublin provided us with a crude measure of these two teams’ standings but it may have revealed the truth.
Even allowing for Donegal having to travel to Croke Park to take on the champions, they still spent the final minutes helplessly watching on as Dublin kept ball.
In that same period of the game Tyrone pressed high and hard with effect in those closing minutes against the champions.
Donegal lost by five, Tyrone by three and that two-point difference might just be what separates them this evening.