Rory Gallagher has always been one of the animated figures on the championship sidelines but at the final whistle on Sunday, he was content to stand back and watch the Derry bedlam unfold around him.
Instead, he shrugged, accepted the bearhug embrace of an ecstatic Derry official and made his way over to commiserate with Michael Murphy and Hugh McFadden, two of the senior Donegal players with whom he soldiered for years.
“Listen, there was no point running out,” he laughed later on. “I just wanted to hear the final whistle and you know, you have been in the middle of that, you know the mayhem that takes place so there is no point going out into the middle of it.”
The narrative going into Sunday’s final was that Gallagher was under pressure having lost Ulster finals while managing Donegal (2015, 2016) and Fermanagh (2018). But he has lived these days before, victorious as part of the Donegal management team with Jim McGuinness which bust through their glass ceiling over a decade ago. Ironically, Derry were the side they brushed aside that day.
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“It’s the third final I won,” Gallagher clarified. “‘11, ‘12, and now ‘22,” he said as his children sat beside him on a medic’s bench.
“I tell these ones, these two weren’t born before when I won two before. You are part of a management team, the title is not important. I can see it in people, associated in that. But I am very fulfilled and content in my role in 2011 and 2012 and how we developed there. I am delighted for these players, who are now seen as top-quality footballers. That is a huge sense of pride as a manager, as a coach, as part of a management team. Getting players like that to the level they want to be on.”
There are clear parallels with 2011, too, when Donegal came hurtling out of the wilderness. And as McGuinness did with Donegal, Gallagher had had a transformative effect on Derry. They have moved from Division Four to Division Two and claimed a provincial title in under three years. But it took Gallagher time to be convinced that the group had the stuff to win an Ulster title.
“Not after the first six months, I didn’t no. I was very annoyed, I wasn’t enjoying it. At the same time you see moments, there’s a player Oisín McWilliams and you see the quality of those lads, Ben McCarron, Emmet Bradley, Ethan Doherty you know there is serious talent.
“I took over in December 2019 and only got going in March. We wanted to change the mindset of players and part of that was challenging the really good players to come out from their club. By that, I mean to come out from their club mentality, in the way that they train and prepare themselves. Then players that were a bit iffy about commitment . . .”
The halt in the season due to the pandemic lockdown gave them an opportunity to take stock of where the county side was headed. They definitely made use of that pause time.
“We did, and bringing in Peter Hughes, Enda Muldoon and [coach] Ciaran Meenagh what they have brought − as well as Stephen Bradley the chairman − has been massive. Because they helped shift the mentality. I wanted football people. I am only one voice and it would be very boring to listen to me all the time. And particularly Ciaran Meenagh, who had taught in Balilnascreen 20 odd years. And I owe a huge debt of gratitude to him.”
The final was such a long drawn-out affair that it is easy to forget Derry were trailing by two points going into the last 10 minutes of normal time. But by then, Gallagher had faith that his team would push again.
“You are never comfortable. But I was never worried we weren’t going to react. I wasn’t worried we weren’t going to go at them or that we would lie down and that gives you a massive chance.”
As it turned out, both teams found themselves in the cool of the dressing room preparing for two ten-minute periods of gruelling extra-time.
“Words don’t even matter then, that’s being honest. We felt we were the better team so we had to re-prove it again. And even [at] the end of normal time we had the chances. We came from behind after giving away a shocking goal by our standards.
“We hadn’t conceded a goal against Armagh and Donegal last year and Tyrone and Monaghan this year; we didn’t bank on conceding one here. But from the throw-in, its in the net, so to have that level of character or balls or whatever you want to call it − I never doubted we’d come back but that doesn’t mean I thought we’d win. You just don’t know.”
