Irish Daily Star - Inside Sport
My da on the was so special
were going Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday which is more like teams are doing now — and that was back in ’93.
It was all pitch-based. Mickey’s training was superb.
It was mainly football related with some running, but not a lot.
Block
That block of training really stood to us and when we went into that Ulster final against Donegal, we were in prime physical shape. Everyone will remember the weather. It was low-scoring — 0-8 to 0-6 — and if it happened now there would be some complaining.
It was a game that should never have taken place in those conditions — the pitch wasn’t playable. For us, it was about surviving and getting across the line. That game could’ve easily gone the other way.
There were two pivotal moments near the end. There was a block Tony Scullion made that was goal-bound. There was another when a ball was passed across the goals and Brian Mcgilligan got a big hand on it to intercept it.
Had he not got there, it was a certain goal... a goal on a day like that would’ve been curtains.
We did enough to get through and that was all that mattered. It was great to win the Ulster title, but we were through to the next stage and our goal was to win the All-ireland.
There was lots to learn from the game as well. Eamonn and the management were sorting out the personnel and the best set-up for the team.
It probably wasn’t a bad thing because it kept Joe Brolly under the radar. He was fantastic against Dublin in the semifinal, largely unknown, but he delivered in Croke Park.
Dublin in Croke Park, I would’ve said it doesn’t get much bigger than that, aside of course, from winning the All-ireland.
Beat
The Dubs had lost to Donegal in the All-ireland Final in 1992, so there is the scenario where they can’t let another Ulster team beat them in Croke Park.
They had some fantastic players and it was a great game of football.
A lot of people talk about the final because it is the big game they see repeated on TV, but the semi-final was a real belter of a game.
It added to the occasion that it was Dublin. We weren’t fussy who we played, we had a job to beat anyone who came in front of us. It could’ve gone either way. When a Derry team comes to Croke Park, they don’t have a massive history of success in All-ireland semi-finals.
But the belief was there. We weren’t going to crumble — and we saw it out. Against Cork in the final we certainly didn’t think we would be five points down early in that game.
You have to gradually try and find your way back into the game. Johnny Mcgurk got the first point, and things started to fall into place.
It’s easy saying there was no way we were going to
is published by Hero Books and written by Michael Mcmullan. For sale in outlets across Derry and more details available at malmcmullan@ hotmail.com or +447779159787 be beaten, but without the fellas standing up and doing what we did, we would’ve been beaten.
You can have the best laid plans in the world, but once the ball is thrown in, it’s in the hands of the players on the pitch.
The manager can make a couple of changes and has a chance to chat to you at halftime, but outside that...it’s you and the boys around you.
It’s about taking your own personal responsibility to make your own contribution and I think, on that day, every Derry player stood up and made a contribution to that victory.
It was the realisation of a boyhood dream, but it was also the most natural thing in the world.
We set out to win it. We needed to win it and we achieved it... so there was that feeling of relief that we had done it.
I had just turned 22, so I was one of the younger fellas. Other guys had soldiered for 10 or 12 years for Derry and finally got across the line. If you had to write it, you’d rather it came at the end of your career instead of spending 10 years trying to win another one, and failing.
Pitch
I remember the final whistle and seeing my da on the pitch after the game and it was only the third time he had seen me play live. My ma and da being there to witness that was very special.
I remember going back up the road and realising this means more to so many more people than it does to me. For me, it was what we had to do and we did it. It was a case of enjoy it, but then let’s go and try to do it again.
THE relief around the country when Ballyhale got beaten by O’loughlin Gaels in the Kilkenny County final was almost palpable amongst the rest of the clubs.
Look at Niall Canavan, the Galway Bay FM broadcaster.
Five minutes after Ballyhale were beaten — and when he was interviewing Shane Cooney after the Galway County final — he informed him straight away that Ballyhale were out of the equation.
You could almost get a sense that every other team in the country felt there was a great chance of winning an All-ireland with the team who had dominated every other club for roughly two decades gone.
Having said all that, we find ourselves in the semi-finals with the exact same four counties represented — Kilkenny (O’loughlin Gaels), Antrim (Cushendall), Waterford (Ballygunner) and Galway (St Thomas).
Each of the clubs will feel they have something to prove and each manager will be trying to find an edge to make their team win.
It’s staggering that between the four sides they have only two All-ireland titles, particularly with the way St Thomas, who won in 2013, and Ballygunner, who won in 2022, have dominated in their counties.
They have just five final appearances between them as well.
O’LOUGHLIN GAELS
O’loughlin’s are a team built on an outstanding defensive unit with two current double All Stars — Huw Lawlor and Mikey Butler — and another Kilkenny star, Paddy Deegan.
David Fogarty and Jordan Molloy, who have been brought into Derek Lyng’s Kilkenny panel since the club Championship, join them in a serious defence.
They boast possibly the best defence left in the club Championship. They’ve only conceded one goal in their last four games.
But the outstanding thing about O’loughlin’s defensive unit is the number of scores they’re getting from the halfback line.
Fogarty has 24 points in this year’s Kilkenny League, Championship and Leinster campaigns. Deegan popped up with five points in the provincial final.
Having Lawlor and Butler behind them gives the halfback line a freedom knowing that the two boys will be able to take care of anything that happens in around the goals.
The worry is the over reliance on Mark Bergin’s frees up front for scores, while inside forward Owen Wall is their best opportunity for scoring goals.
They are not scoring heavily, with the majority of the scores coming from the half-back line and midfield.
Brian Hogan was part of a club delegation to try and find a new manager.
They ended up appointing him because they realised the best man for the job was sitting straight right in front of him.
He has a wonderful rapport for all the players and there’s massive respect for everything he has done in the game.
Their team is built off a minor success of 2017, with nine of those starting or coming on in games.
They have a very, very young team with Kilkenny seniors’ Mickey Comerford taking care of Strength and Conditioning, ensuring they have remained injury-free throughout the campaign.
Brian Hogan has Nigel Skehan, Alan O’brien and Alan Geoghan with him.
All four were members of the panel that lost the All-ireland final to Clarinbridge in 2011.
So these lads will know exactly what it takes to get themselves to a final.
O’loughlin’s will feel it’s third time lucky for them. Hogan and Geoghan were part of the panel that lost to Newtownshandrum back in 2003.
This time they’ll look to bridge that gap and end that All-ireland drought.
BALLYGUNNER
Ballygunner manager Darragh O’sullivan always says they’re just focusing on the next game.
It was noteworthy then that after the Munster final — when they went joint top of the roll of honour with Blackrock on five titles and won the first ever three-in-a-row — he said how much significance that had.
It’s obviously something they were speaking of, to be out on their own as a three-in-row champion.
The players said it as well in their interviews afterwards.
They will know themselves that this latest Munster win and their 10-in-a-row down in Waterford will mean nothing unless they can add to their 2022 All-ireland.
They have Wexford’s top coach David Franks, and Seanie O’donnell’s influence on the team and their tactical awareness is very evident.
O’donnell is in the Limerick backroom team and is highly regarded as one of, if not the best, sports analysts in the country at the moment.
Ballygunner are playing a very similar style to Limerick.
If you decide to push up on them and leave gaps at the back their full-forward line — led by Dessie Hutchinson, Kevin Mahony and Patrick Fitzgerald — will do damage.
If you decide to sit back, their ability to find little pockets, play triangles out the field and kill you off is a headache for the opposition.
De La Salle are the only team to put up a decent amount of scoring chances against them, 32.
They scored more than anyone else, 21 points, and they were still comprehensively