Ulster Senior Football Championship
DERRY can use Monaghan’s rise from Ulster Championship nearly-men to provincial kingpins as inspiration when they welcome Tyrone to Celtic Park this Sunday, according to playmaker James Kielt.
The Farney men were at a low ebb in 2012 after bowing out of the Ulster Championship to Down before limping out the Qualifier exit door at the hands of Laois weeks later.
Yet, since manager Malachy O’Rourke has come in, Monaghan have become a major force - lifting the Anglo-Celt Cup for the first time in a quarter-of-a-century when beating Donegal in 2013, before repeating the dose last summer.
Damian Barton is the latest man charged with rejuvenating Derry’s fortunes, starting with Sunday’s provincial quarter-final clash against Mickey Harte’s Red Hands. And Kielt, who was first brought onto the county panel by Damian Cassidy in 2009, says Monaghan are a glowing example of what can be achieved in a short space of time.
“I played Monaghan in a couple of Championship games - in ‘09, we beat them and, by and large, there wasn’t too many changes from that team to the one that won the UIster Championship in 2013,” said the Kilrea man.
“So when you look at things like that, you feel that you want to be there as well because, if you get it right in any given year, you can get there. Donegal were well beat in Crossmaglen [in 2011] - two years later, they were All-Ireland champions. Nobody would have expected that. That’s not going to happen to every county team, it’s nearly once in a lifetime sort of stuff.
“But they’ve still won three Ulster Championships from nowhere, so it’s no flash in the pan. They’ve just done a bit of hard work and I suppose that’s where you aspire to get to.
“Even Tyrone before that, from 2003 to 2010-odd, they won three or four Ulster Championships and three All-Irelands. I’m sure they’re in the same boat - the McMahons and Sean Cavanagh really are the only boys with any medals, so they’ll all be hungry now.”
Sunday’s game will be the fifth instalment of what has been a one-sided series between Derry and Tyrone so far, stretching back to last December’s O Fiaich Cup. Despite coming close twice in the Dr McKenna Cup, the Red Hands have swept the boards, winning all four - with their early March league meeting the most comprehensive of the lot.
The prospect of a first Ulster Championship derby date with their neighbours is enough to get the blood pumping and Kielt admits the outcome of the game will have a huge bearing on the mood in the county.
“At the start of the Championship every year, you look into it and think ‘how big is this?’. Every year is big, but I’m 27-years-of-age, it’s the first time I’ll have played against Tyrone in the Championship,” he said.
“Derry and Tyrone is probably as fierce a rivalry as you would get in GAA that I would know of and there’s usually good banter between the supporters - if banter’s the word you’d use to describe it.
“It’s an important game for me and the whole county. The difference between a win and a loss could be huge. If you beat Tyrone, the whole county would be on a high and, if we don’t, it’ll just be ‘same old Derry’, back to the doldrums, back to the usual stuff.
“Seventy minutes can change a lot of things.”
