Donegal stumble to their date with destiny

ALL-IRELAND SFC FINAL DONEGAL v MAYO:A forgettable semi-final in 1992 proved a defining one for both teams as winners Donegal went on to claim an historic first title while Mayo's fortunes declined amid unrest in the camp

BY THE end of the first All-Ireland football semi-final of 1992, on 17th August, Donegal had in the words of Paddy Downey in this newspaper “stepped ashore in Hy-Brasil”.

It was, however, opponents Mayo who would disappear from sight like the mythical island.

If they didn’t quite vanish for another seven years, it still took four seasons and three changes of management before they would again register a serious presence on the football landscape.

Donegal’s elation at reaching the county’s first All-Ireland final meant there wasn’t much angst over what had been a wretchedly poor match and if anything – and they wouldn’t have known this at the time – the unimpressive spectacle was to have one beneficial outcome.

According to Dublin captain Tom Carr, speaking the following spring, he and his team-mates who had attended the match as a group left Croke Park convinced they could beat a combination of the two semi-finalists.

Carr acknowledged that this wasn’t a helpful frame of mind – especially as his team had yet to win their semi-final, against Halley’s Comet Munster champions Clare, then by coincidence in the charge of future Mayo manager John Maughan.

Even then, it was a repented point of view, but one that still piques Matt Gallagher, full back on that Donegal team: “I’d be a bit surprised to be honest. We genuinely wouldn’t have had any fears of Dublin. They beat us luckily in a league quarter-final, but that was the only time in about four games that we lost.”

Donegal had become a more seasoned side in the previous couple of years, wining Ulster in 1990 and reaching the following year’s final only to lose to a Down team en route to Ulster’s first All-Ireland in 23 years.

In 1992 they reached a third successive provincial final and beat a highly-fancied Derry, then NFL winners and who had eliminated Down, despite being a man short for most of the match.

Gallagher believes that the 1990 All-Ireland semi-final was a crucial building block for Brian McEniff’s team. They bettered the Leinster champions for about three-quarters of the match and although their more experienced opponents turned the screw in the final phase, Donegal’s display had exceeded expectations.

“Meath had a fine side in 1990, very tough at a time when we wouldn’t have been seen as tough. When we stood up and battled we surprised ourselves and by ’92 we were capable of grinding the gears and had left behind the old ‘good one day and shite the next’ inconsistency.”

Mayo were on a downward trajectory. Three years previously the county had been All-Ireland finalists for the first time since 1951 and acquitted themselves well against an experienced Cork team. But the intervening years hadn’t developed that promise. Manager John O’Mahony tried to rebuild but after a hair’s breadth Connacht final replay defeat but he wasn’t allowed to continue.

His successor Brian McDonald had won an All-Ireland with Dublin in 1963. He was, even by the standards of 20 years ago, old school – hostile to media and a sergeant major with his players. Nonetheless they won Connacht and arrived in the All-Ireland semi-final to face Donegal, buoyed by the province’s high success rate against Ulster opposition.

But the mood wasn’t exactly soaring.

“We didn’t play well that year,” remembers Liam McHale, then combining life as a basketball international with an inter-county football career that, if inevitably compromised by the dual demands, would still make a huge contribution to his county.

“We would usually go through to the All-Ireland series with a fair bit of confidence after winning Connacht but that year I didn’t have that feeling about us going into the semi-final with Donegal.

“On a personal note I was shifted around a lot. I was full forward, centre forward, centrefield. It was a game that never really took fire, never got up to a level that you’d expect an All-Ireland semi-final to get to. The pace wasn’t as high or as physical.”

According to Gallagher, Donegal were a little apprehensive. After all, the county had lost all four All-Ireland semi-finals in the previous 20 years.

“I’d say we were nervous. I remember reading around that time that in the Connacht-Ulster semi-finals Connacht traditionally came out on top – Tyrone in ’86 and Armagh in ’77 had been the only exceptions for a lone time – and yet the provinces were playing each other every three years. It wasn’t in any way fluent.”

The Ulster champions kicked 17 wides, which played a large part in keeping Mayo at the table, in fact they led up until the final quarter. Around then the big controversy of the afternoon unfolded.

Ever since he had been a schoolboy, Pádraig Brogan was destined for great things. Described by a teacher as the best footballer he had ever seen, Brogan scored the goal of the season in 1985 but, beset by personal difficulties, his career never came close to fulfilment.

There was some surprise when he popped up in Donegal, having transferred there in an apparent effort to reinvigorate his life.

In fact nothing in Brogan’s Donegal career proved as sensational as its termination. He simply vanished one night and returned to Mayo. With 15 minutes left in the 1992 semi-final, his introduction as a replacement proved provocative.

“I knew him from around Bundoran,” says Gallagher, “so it wasn’t a big deal for me. There had been a certain amount of resentment that he had been taken in and wasn’t contributing anything. That was no secret and when he did come on those with an axe to grind were happy to grind it.”

To McHale the gambit was a profound miscalculation.

“One of the biggest mistakes we made that day was bringing on Pádraig Brogan when we did because when he came on it lifted the Donegal boys because he’d played with them. You could feel the energy surge in the stadium. You could feel the supporters get into it and the Donegal players responding.

“You got the feeling that this is finishing us off – nothing against Pádraig but if we were bringing him in we should have done it earlier. It was a dull game with little atmosphere up until then but when he came in you could feel the tension rising and the ruckus in the crowd was the biggest of the day.

“I think we were a little bit stunned for a few minutes but I remember the Donegal boys in the middle of the field – Anthony Molloy and the boys – sticking up their fists and saying ‘come on, now’.”

Mayo wilted and the last act of the match saw Martin McHugh avail of the luxury of tapping a penalty over the bar to confirm a four-point victory.

As Donegal got ready for their first All-Ireland final, McDonald just about survived an effective gesture of no confidence. In the immediate aftermath of the semi-final county chair PJ Loftus floated the idea of recently retired Kerry player Jack O’Shea becoming Mayo manager.

But McDonald was unable to survive the opposition of his players, who in an unprecedented act of protest wrote to the county board outlining their unhappiness with the manager – including inter alia the famous complaint that they had been asked to push selectors’ cars around a public car park (dismissed by McDonald as “a bit of craic”) – and refusing to play.

For Donegal history was in the making. On the night they brought the Sam Maguire home to the hills, McDonald was tendering his resignation to the Mayo County Board, describing the players’ statement as having “unleashed a poisoned monster on me and my family”. Seldom have the trajectories of two All-Ireland semi-finalists diverged so radically in the space of a few weeks.