The 1993 All-Ireland finalists are heading fast in opposite directions.
I can never remember such a dramatic fall from grace in such a short space of time as we’ve seen from Derry this season. It’s been shocking to witness.
Sunday was their worst performance yet. They were utterly shambolic in defence.
There’s almost a humiliation factor to some of it. I did enjoy the tweet – or X post – where one lad said that he’d seen Odhrán Lynch scampering back to his goal-line more than he’d seen his own mother this year.
It’s hard to fathom the thought processes that are contributing to these repeated errors. Their set-up on opposition kickouts is kamikazee stuff and has continually cost them and yet they’re persisting.
The bald stats are they conceded eight goals in eight championship games last year. This year, nine goals conceded in three games. And none scored. None even created!
Blaming fatigue is a bizarre one. Did Derry not have a six-week break after losing to Donegal? The same layoff was credited in facilitating Mayo’s win over Kerry in the group phase last year. But Derry have only gotten worse.
Did the manner of the Donegal loss shatter their belief and confidence in their general approach? And now they’re at sea as to how to react. In the league, their attacking defenders were their greatest asset – now they’ve become their most glaring weak point.
At this stage, one has to question whether there are internal issues in the dressing room. The streaks of ill-discipline we’ve seen feel like a telltale sign. Ciaran McFaul went above and beyond in his attempt to get sent off in Salthill. He managed to pull it off in his brief spell on the pitch last Sunday. I know Mickey Harte was complaining that he was being provoked.
But from Armagh’s perspective, why would you not try to rile this guy? He reacts to everything, of course you’re going to prod him. The shouldering and jostling in standard practice in Ulster games, nothing out of the ordinary.
Even Conor Glass seemed a touch ratty and annoyed the last day. I saw The Irish News’ Cahair O’Kane observing that when Emmet Bradley was substituted, Glass threw his hands up in the air in an openly bemused and frustrated reaction.
It does raise questions about the reliability of league form. We saw Mayo ambushed by Roscommon last summer and then subsequently going down badly against Dublin the quarter-final – though their season was nowhere as catastrophic as Derry’s has been this year.
Let’s not forget Armagh were very good and have shown impressive resilience to bounce back from a particularly sickening Ulster final loss.
It doesn’t quite answer the questions we’ve had about Armagh up to now. We knew prior to this year that they had the capability to win these sorts of games. They beat Tyrone and then put Donegal out of their misery in the back door in 2022 and we know that there’s serious talent and athletic potential in the side. But still no silverware and I did like the way Kieran McGeeney acknowledged as much in his post-match interview.
Ultimately, I think the margin still says more about Derry than Armagh – you could have driven a jumbo jet through the gaps in the Derry defence. But Armagh deserve credit for their ruthlessness in attack.
At the moment, you’d give them the slight edge for the Galway game, given the likelihood that Damien Comer and Rob Finnerty are still going to be sidelined.
As for Derry, who knows anymore? Westmeath will surely fancy their chances and what state will Derry turn up in. You certainly can’t tip them with any confidence.
The round-robin stage has certainly softened the cough of the Ulster football fraternity. They have the most balanced provincial championship but that doesn’t mean it houses the best teams. Donegal’s loss to Cork was the biggest jolt yet.
Jim McGuinness’ side have a stronger claim to blame tiredness than Derry, given their run through Ulster. One mitigation from this is it’s a disaster of a journey from Donegal to Cork. An 800km round trip is sick enough, it can’t have helped things.
John Cleary and his management team deserve credit for their revival and you can certainly see Kevin Walsh’s imprint on the team.
There are similarities to Walsh’s stint in charge in Galway. In both counties, Walsh arrived when they were on the floor, floating around in the middle of the second tier and struggling for traction in the championship.
We had the whip hand over them for a few years before Walsh’s arrival. But that soon turned around. From 2016 onwards, we went from regularly beating them handily to being unable to get the better of them. He schooled Galway in modern defensive methods, a controversial approach given the vocal purist lobby down there.
They frustrated the life out of us. They made the game so boring – to play and probably to watch. We lost three years in a row to Galway between ’16 and ’18. We couldn’t break them down, couldn’t score a goal against them until Limerick in 2019 when James Carr barrelled through for a couple of screamers.
They were hitting us, turning us over, countering really fast. There were certainly echoes of that in Cork’s ambush of Donegal on Saturday.
Hyde Park provided further evidence that the current system isn’t capturing the imagination. Roscommon and Mayo have long been sick of the sight of one another – to be honest – but never more so than in June 2024. Three games in one season and Saturday’s All-Ireland series was the worst attended of the lot.
We had 13k at the Connacht semi-final, nine thousand at the league match in February (when the weather wasn’t too kind) and just over eight thousand at Saturday’s game (when the weather was very kind).
From the point of view of slapping down Roscommon, 2024 could hardly have gone better for Mayo. I know Davy Burke was complaining about refereeing calls, but the excuses have been flowing too freely this year. He was bemoaning injuries and absences throughout the league.
But loads of teams had to contend with that. Galway, for instance, were much worse hit by injuries and managed to stay in Division 1. Farcically, a draw against Cavan will be enough to keep the Rossies in the championship.
Logically, no one will be fancying Mayo to take out Dublin in the final group game. And yet it’s set up nicely for Mayo. There’s little or no pressure heading into it.
At worst, they’ll have a home preliminary quarter-final – though that could be a dubious record given the Castlebar record. But in the circumstances, it’s a free shot for Kevin McStay’s side to have a tilt at the All-Ireland champions with nothing much to lose.
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