Ulster Final: Donegal have reinvented themselves with typical unorthodoxy, writes Keith Duggan. This final promises to be vintage.
For all the stunts and grand dramas executed in Donegal football over the last few years, their reappearance this summer as a young, fearless and largely unknown team remains a spectacular turn up for the books. Their place in tomorrow's Ulster final, against an endlessly fascinating Armagh team who have always reserved their best performances for the Donegal men, has been the one true novelty of an uninspired championship.
And it reinforces the theory that Donegal football is first and foremost a puzzle. It is only a matter of weeks since expectations in the county were downright bleak, with the usual, attendant rumours of unhappiness in the camp and adventures on the high stool.
After regaining promotion from Division Two with low-key assuredness under Brian McIver, Donegal were both awful and brilliant in the drawn league final against Louth and looked flat and half-interested in the rain that fell steadfastly over Cavan town a week later. Louth fans were understandably ecstatic and emboldened by their victory.
The losers' day was best summed up by a small group of Gweedore men on a forlorn tour of Cavan's pubs. After chastising a barwoman because not a single bar he had visited stocked a box of matches, a well soused middle-aged man turned to the cliques of drinkers and announced cheerfully: "Well, another fantastic day for Donegal football."
As he headed out the door, his yellow and gold Azzurri top drenched under a leather jacket, the bittersweet comment and long drive home he faced through the rainy borderlands seemed a perfect reflection of just how far Donegal football had drifted.
In the week that followed, there was speculation Brendan Devenney was set to make a dramatic return from self-imposed retirement. And, on the flipside, Kevin Cassidy - a dominant personality and player on the team - took up an offer to go to the US after being dropped by McIver for drinking between the Louth matches. The Gaoth Dobhair man had no axe to grind with the manager, but was dismayed by the furore that erupted over what he believes was a small slip-up, a few drinks on an off night.
Cassidy was one of the very few left from Brian McEniff's last, tantalising and ultimately unfulfilled tenure guaranteed a start under McIver. The Tyrone man had unsettled many observers with his radical reconstruction of the team. Most managers paid lip service to the truth that Gaelic football is a young man's game; McIver put it into practice, consistently and ruthlessly.
The reward has been two exciting, disciplined and courageous victories over Down and Derry and a return to the Ulster final - Donegal's fifth appearance in the provincial showpiece since they last won it in the holy year of 1992. Derry beat them in 1993 and 1998. In 2002, Armagh beat them narrowly and went on to win an historic All-Ireland. In 2004, Armagh ruptured them with a frighteningly complete performance.
Donegal football has had so many unexpected thrills - the draw against Dublin in 2002, the gallant All-Ireland semi-final loss under McEniff a year later, the 14-man victory over All-Ireland champions Tyrone in 2004 - and lows - successive relegations, the inability to secure a manager, the shenanigans and humiliating defeat in the Dublin replay of 2002, the inflamed, out-of-control denouement of the Ulster first-round replay against Armagh last June when three Donegal men were sent to the line and the remaining players exacted revenge by felling three Armagh men during one sensationally tense period of play and scoring a late goal that Devenney celebrated with an anguished howl at the skies - that their quiet, persistent need for a provincial title has been eclipsed.
"It's the one thing I am waiting for," Adrian Sweeney said with feeling on the field at Ballybofey earlier this week. "Armagh fellas are on about winning their second All-Ireland. I am only dreaming of that, but if I got an Ulster medal, yeah, I would be delighted. But sure these Armagh boys are going for three Ulster championships in a row and they won't let go of that easy."
Sweeney, the county's most recent All Star, in 2003, is one of the players who had to make the biggest readjustment this season. Since his debut in 1996, he was an automatic selection, a meaty, traditional full forward with a devastatingly true left-footed shot. McIver sat him in the league and has used him judiciously and sparingly in the championship: "You get the name of being a good substitute," said Sweeney with a rueful smile, "and it's hard to shake it".
The demotion was something he struggled to accept, but as he looked through all the lines and saw how utterly McIver had changed the team - only four of the 2003 All-Ireland semi-final team started against Derry - he learned to accept it.
"Ask most fellas who played for a while, it is hard to accept. But Brian is the manager and he decides what is best. My attitude - and I said it to him - was to see if I could prove him wrong and show him I am fit for more than 25 minutes. Even in the last six weeks I think I have come along in terms of fitness. You couldn't be seen just because things were happening personally just to walk away. You had to look at the squad as a whole. I am just a small part of it. You sort of see how things go. Brian had to put his own stamp on it. Look at the players who are not featuring on Sunday and you can see the extent that he has changed it."
The reconstruction was not without its moments of tensions. Many established players were understandably frustrated, most notably Shane Carr, the loyal Four Masters man who tended to deliver elevated performances in a Donegal shirt and dropped out of the panel after it became obvious the management preferred Eamon McGee, the teak-tough Gweedore man, at right half back.
It was doubly disappointing for Carr as the other two half backs, Barry Monaghan and Barry Dunnion, were his clubmates and it must have seemed he belonged in that unit. And McGee, of course, was no angel, having also been disciplined by McIver for the same crime Cassidy committed. But the Gweedore man has been openly repentant and responded to his second chance with two accomplished championship displays.
"I spoke with Shane Carr there a few nights ago and he pulled out two months ago and he is feeling it now," sympathised Sweeney. "And I feel sorry for him because whereas I was getting 20 minutes here and there, he was getting very little of the play and he opted out because of his business and that. So it is tight on fellas like that watching in now on an Ulster final. But as I said to Shane, think of it this way, if you weren't going to be on the field on Sunday, you haven't missed anything."
McIver spoke courteously about Carr but the episode definitely clarified just how tough the new manager was prepared to be. It has meant county stalwarts like Brian Roper, Damien Diver, Raymond Sweeney and Stephen McDermott joined Sweeney on what is a heavyweight substitutes bench. And the kids McIver has invested time and faith in know they can afford to make a mistake and have his trust.
An obvious example has been Michael Doherty, the slender stylist whose effortless free-taking is reminiscent of the young Martin McHugh. Wearing T-shirt and jeans as he leaned against the wire watching training, the Donegal Town man will not feature on Sunday, having broken teeth and bruised a knee against Derry. His championship debut, against Down, was spoiled when his dead-ball form inexplicably degenerated, but his recovery two weeks later confirmed his central role.
"It was a step-up, but I didn't feel any nerves," he said of the Down game. "I landed two early ones fine and then got these two in front of the goal and, I don't know, it was the worst day I ever hit frees. Brian just told me he believed in me, that he knew I was good enough. Like, I know that myself, I would have the confidence. But I wanted to prove it against Derry."
By the time he was carried from the field, groggy after a sickening collision with Paul Cartin, Doherty had done just that. Missing tomorrow's final is a cruel blow, to him and the team. But, typically, it is not a point McIver has laboured, instead praising the panel of 30 and delighting that this was a team with seven championship debutants, a team still learning its craft.
When McIver pulled Christy Toye aside at training last winter and told him he was making him captain, the languid St Michael's man was as surprised as anyone. The choice perplexed many, but it has worked - the flashes of absolute brilliance from a man long regarded as one of the most talented young players in the county have been replaced by a slower-burning, workaholic influence around the middle third of the field.
The brilliant goal he hammered against Armagh in Croke Park three Augusts ago best captured his speed and strength and glimmering scoring potential. And that remains, but this year, Toye has initiated and created attacks rather than finished them.
"I suppose you work out for yourself what you need to change about your game," he said. "Brian would help you but he would leave your game come naturally to you. What he did was bring a new dimension to training. Like everything in life, things get stale.
"And players, attitudes, it has all changed. Even the mentors, just hearing new voices made a difference. We knew in the squad we had to change if we wanted to succeed in the modern game. And we all know the reputation Donegal developed down the years. One day, we would go out and beat the All-Ireland champions and the next game we would be pure rubbish. If you could explain that, you'd be a genius."
Toye's personality seems to best reflect that of the team in that he seems caught between knowing his own quality and being too polite to acknowledge it. Most of his observations are self-deprecating. The features cloud only when he talks about the general perception of Donegal football as some kind of eternal fraternity house.
"We didn't do ourselves any favours, but our problems went on in other counties too. And wherever Donegal players were seen, it became a big story. A lot of our players got these reputations unfairly. It's not something you want following you around as a team. I don't know what we have to do go get shot of it . . . All we can do is try and get it done on the field and hopefully people will forget about that reputation."
And that is what has made Donegal's constant hammering of heads with Armagh such a fascination. Although tomorrow's pairing is familiar, it is still a surprise and it remains a vivid meeting of football cultures. Donegal, popularly portrayed as skilful, temperamental dilettantes too fond of the nightlife, and Armagh, psychotically disciplined and driven, the archetype of the new GAA team where fun has no place. Neither stereotype is even halfway accurate.
But since Armagh made the breakthrough in 2002, their fans and detractors alike can at least claim to know something of them. Donegal, meanwhile, have remained stubbornly beyond categorisation. Thousands will travel from the far corner of Ulster to spend tonight in the Portobello and the other northwest-orientated city taverns, hopeful and guessing, perhaps anticipating something special or the infliction of another painful lesson in know-how from Armagh.
The new voices are in place, but on the eve of another Ulster final for Donegal, the story remains the same. Donegal are anybody's best guess. All that can be said with certainty is that their reinvention has been swift and brave and - in classic Donegal tradition - a defiance of all reasonable expectation.