Trophy success has eluded Fermanagh but don't call Rory Gallagher a loser, writes Keith Duggan
The Belleek man is getting impatient. He is tired of the accusatory zero that sums up Fermanagh's Ulster title record, bored with moral victories and the hard-luck stories and sick of the excuses. He has never permitted himself such cushions and for the past few years he has refused to hear them when it comes to Fermanagh football.
Many people believed that Rory Gallagher just fell from the skies after his spellbinding 3-9 virtuoso performance that had the game's chroniclers trawling the dusty factbooks before declaring it a record. But the truth is Rory Gallagher arrived years ago and thinks it is high time he moved on.
O'Moore Park in Portlaoise would not be an automatic field of dreams for many Gaelic footballers but it will have to do for Fermanagh. It could be argued that many tomorrows will be shaped by what happens in this afternoon's rumble with Kerry. Of all the qualifying ties, this is the most eye-catching, with the quiet, modest Ulster county pitched against the sport's great lyricists, its globetrotters.
It is a date Fermanagh have called for over the years - a genuine contest against football's glitterati - but now it has arrived, the shadow of the Kingdom might be causing a gulp or two.
"To be honest, I am delighted that it's Kerry. I suppose some people would regard it as unfortunate that we met possibly the strongest team in the qualifiers. But what is the point in creeping through against smaller opposition? Fermanagh football needs a big performance some time and if ever there was a time to deliver it, then it's against Kerry," says Gallagher.
Gallagher knows how fine the line is. Two years ago, he quietly predicted Fermanagh would successfully raid Donegal in the championship despite the decades of one-way history. He was right. That same year, hampered by a leg injury, he was at his most elusive when his team pushed Armagh to the brink in the provincial semi-final. They lost out, falling on a distant and wayward free, and Gallagher closed his ears to the talk of next year, the same words he'd been hearing since he was a kid. The present is the only broadcast that matters for him.
It won't be lost on him that Donegal and Armagh, counties which his own were on the verge of eclipsing, are in the Ulster final tomorrow. A month ago, Armagh inflicted a crushing 0-16 to 1-5 defeat on Fermanagh, a complete and dispiriting lesson.
That Sunday seemed to remove the already slender faith from Fermanagh and not many more that 300 showed up for their qualifier six days later in Mullingar.
"I think we were guilty of a lot of things against Armagh that day. We played into their hands tactically. Armagh's a team that like to sit behind the ball and we never really invited them to come out and play. And we had an off-day ourselves. But, you know, this team has been together six years now. That's a long time. Losing like that was never going to shatter our confidence or anything. It annoyed us and taught us a few things but it wasn't going to make us lie down."
And so they travelled to the home of Westmeath, the success story of the Great Experiment and controlled the game, running out seven-point winners. So for Kerry, the Ulster team must be a tough read.
"Well, it would be a mistake to presume that Westmeath were anywhere close to the form that they achieved last year," Gallagher observes.
"They were coming off a bad season so I doubt Kerry will read too much into that. I would say Kerry see us as a soft touch, to be honest. This is a team that has done it all and they expect to be in All-Irelands."
And equally, Gallagher expects to be able to thrive in that sort of company. That's why his opinions sometimes sound bold. He does not believe Fermanagh should be simply pleased to run on the same field as the game's aristocracy. Perhaps that is because he would stroll on to any side in the country.
A lethal place-kicker and a brilliant playmaker, he progresses through high-octane championship matches in an unhurried, almost casual manner. Free of injury, he has been in wonderful form, taking a Sigerson medal with Sligo IT before hitting 3-9 of 4-13 against Monaghan. Interviewed immediately after that game, he was uninterested in his personal tally and has since become almost dismissive of it.
"Look, Monaghan had one of their worst leagues ever and came into that game demoralised. Personal tallies don't really matter. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to be scoring that every game if it helped the team to win. But I am much more interested in Fermanagh giving a balanced and positive account of themselves, you know."
The romantics moaned about the fact the GAA didn't stage this David and Goliath parable in the Old Vic on Jones's Road. Gallagher, now based in Dublin as a development officer with St Brigid's GAA club, shrugs at the thought. He jokes that maybe the Fermanagh support could have been accommodated along one row of the Canal End.
"We know from the league the extent of our support. We have a small branch that follows us but, overall, our support wouldn't be huge. Ah, Croke Park would have been nice but it doesn't matter. You want to win the game no matter where it is played."
