A FEAST of football awaits this weekend with the quarter-finals of the Ulster Club Senior Football Championship.
The four matches – Lamh Dearg v Cavan Gaels, Derrygonnelly v Armagh Harps, Slaughtneil v Omagh and Kilcar v Scotstown – are all perfectly-matched and all have little sub-plots and background stories that make the club game so much more interesting and colourful than its county big brother.
A feast, maybe, but whether the football on display is to everyone’s taste is a different matter.
The club game has followed the trend seen in the county game for more defensive set-ups.
The fact that their adoption seemed most prevalent in Ulster (or is it that Ulster teams were better at them?) led to Ulster being roundly blamed for this apparent degradation of our game.
My reluctance to accept this collective blaming stems from my own experience.
The first team that beat Tyrone employing what we now recognise as the blanket defence, was Dublin in 2010 under Pat Gilroy.
I remember clearly the amazing stat that we won 100 per cent of our own kick-outs.
Back then, such a stat was unheard of. Of course, we now recognise this for merely indicating a Dublin team conceding the kick-out rather than any great play on our behalf. We hadn’t a clue and gladly gathered up the ball and trotted up the pitch amazed at how much possession we were having and presuming it must count on the scoreboard.
Unfortunately we hit something in the region of 17 wides through getting frustrated in attack, taking wrong shooting options or shooting under pressure. At the time we thought it was just one of those days. If only.
The following year Dublin and Donegal would meet in their infamous semi-final.
Donegal were held culpable for the defensive nature of the game, as why let the truth get in the way of flagrant bias? But the dye was cast, the blanket was Ulster’s. Donegal’s subsequent success in 2012 and the gradual transition of Tyrone and Monaghan to defensive set-ups only cemented the opinion that the defensive game was a wholly northern aberration.
Following Kilcar’s recent long-sought-after breakthrough in Donegal, Ryan McHugh was interviewed by a number of outlets with the major point of questioning centering on the defensive nature of the game and the resultant poor spectacle. This zoning in on the negative and over-reaction by the media is typical of the trend to see everything as some sort of tabloid headline with drama or consternation at every turn.
A crap Donegal final = the death of the game. Rubbish. It was a poor game.
Like many others in the past and many more in the future, it failed to live up to what it may have been, especially given the preparation and skill levels of modern players.
Just a touch of pragmatism or perspective should both decrease the noise and maybe see the great sports story that it is.
Here Kilcar, a small club with a fine tradition, had gone 24 years, essentially a generation, without a county title.
They have amassed what must feel like a dream team with the McHugh brothers and Paddy McBrearty headlining a generally excellent team.
Last year they went all out, blowing teams away until they met Glenswilly in the final where they choked to death in the Glenswilly blanket.
Having likely listened to countless ‘you have to lose one to win one’ conciliatory pieces of advice, Kilcar returned this year hardened to the task. It was do-whatever-it-takes time.
They got over the line sparking the outpouring of joy that all those clubs who are longing for success can easily imagine yet only dream.
So a bad game maybe but a great story. Good luck to them I say.
It is not Kilcar’s job to worry about the game on a grander scale.
For me, I have always thought the current defensive trend, which has been present from 2010, was only ever going to be just another evolution.
I, like many others, could enjoy the tactical side of it and remained open-minded enough to enjoy the many great games we saw over the past several years.
While stating this and while defending Kilcar, this year has seen me start to run out of patience.
I’m not alone. Many people who have been happy enough to go along with this have found it beginning to wear thin.
Games where teams play chess against each other and run around like they are playing tig rather than go into contact is hard to watch and against the very best attributes of our game.
The Tyrone-Dublin game probably stands out as the tipping point.
To see such a decent, well-prepared team just look so inept and worse still, not even compete with Dublin, seemed to be the final proof that this particular approach has had its time.
The wind appears to be already changing.
As seen in the All-Ireland final, mass defence will still be an element of the game but there will be a trend to keep more men higher up the pitch as teams try to find a new balance between defence and attack.
Looking at the primary blanket defence teams in Ulster, one can see the potential shift coming. Monaghan look to have the perfect armoury with which to embrace such changes with their attacking triumvirate of Conor McManus, Conor McCarthy and Jack McCarron.
In Donegal, rumours are that Declan Bonnar will position Michael Murphy at the edge of the square, to cries of Alleluia throughout the country (except from full-backs of course).
An inside line of him and McBrearty, if given enough time, could be a special thing. Then in Tyrone, the rumours of Stephen O’Neill coming in as forwards coach, if true, can surely be interpreted as part of Mickey Harte’s plan to evolve the attacking side of his team.
So this weekend, enjoy our games for what they are.
There will be great battles and great stories.
Yes, there will likely be a fair bit of defensive football but let’s not get too caught up in the hand wringing lest we miss the great games in front of us.
Like that famous Mark Twain line “the reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated”, the game is alive and kicking (okay, hand-passing, but that’s for another day!).
