Football

Quiet Derry star Daniel Heavron fit to blossom

<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; ">After three years waiting in the wings, Danny Heavron finally made his Championship debut for Derry against Down last summer <br />Picture by Margaret McLaughlin</span>&nbsp;
After three years waiting in the wings, Danny Heavron finally made his Championship debut for Derry against Down last summer
Picture by Margaret McLaughlin
 
After three years waiting in the wings, Danny Heavron finally made his Championship debut for Derry against Down last summer
Picture by Margaret McLaughlin
 

IT WASN'T until he was handed the number 15 shirt for the visit of Down to Celtic Park last June that Daniel Heavron made his Championship debut for Derry.

Three seasons on the panel, more than enough league appearances under his belt and the quality to play Championship football; he ought to have been a regular by then. But Lady Luck slapped him hard across the face. Not once, but twice.

Brian McIver put the air in the tyres of his career when he called him in at the start of the 2013 season. Heavron had featured on the Derry minor side that had reached the All-Ireland final in 2007 and graduated to U21 three years later, but didn’t play in any of their three Championship games in 2010.

His club career blossomed, but he was still a relatively obscure figure when he was parachuted into the Oak Leaf side. Part of that owed to his quiet characteristics. Confident, certainly. But Heavron has always had a very quiet, understated way of going about things. He has always shunned the limelight.

He played a lot of that league campaign of 2013 and was a frontrunner to start the Ulster Championship opener against Down. But a fortnight before the game, he suffered a torn cruciate ligament in a club league game against Ballinderry. Going for a ball, no-one near him, the knee went. Bang went 2013.

“I was 23 when the cruciate was done,” he recalls.

“When you do all the tough slog and you come to the time you want to be playing and you’re not… you can take it two ways. You can try and push on and come back, maybe prove people wrong a wee bit, or you can lie on your ass and do nothing about it.”

It was an arduous road back but, just as Derry clawed their way into the Division One final, Heavron made his return. On a team that showed 14 changes for a last-day dead-rubber in Castlebar, Heavron slotted in and stood straight out.

His run had perhaps come too late anyway, but any chance he had of featuring that summer went when he ruptured his ankle ligaments on the same leg ahead of the qualifier defeat by Longford.

“The first two seasons, I was playing football but, when it came to the crunch, I kept getting injured. And they weren’t just wee silly injuries,” said the Magherafelt man.

And so it wasn’t until last June that he finally made his Championship debut in the white-and-red. McIver had always been a fan. He had always spoken in glowing terms. He had even manufactured the position for him, changing the setup to an extent to allow Heavron to operate as the free man in defence.

“The spare role wasn’t too bad,” he says, while admitting a preference for the role on the wing, in which Damian Barton is currently employing him.

“Sometimes it’s tough. Other times, it isn’t too bad. But if anything goes wrong, you can get blamed for it very handy. But if you do your own job it makes it easier for everybody else. 

"When everybody’s fit and you know the cover will be there, you can try and express yourself a wee bit and get up the field. But no matter what it is, you try and enjoy it. I know what it’s like to be on the sidelines looking on, so you try and enjoy any time you’re playing, no matter where you’re playing or what the circumstances are.”

His versatility is a key strength. The 26-year-old could play the sweeping role, though the big effect he had there was an attacker. It was never better displayed than in the teeming Salthill rain in July. Derry may have lost, but it was the afternoon on which Heavron displayed his quality to the full.

He finished as his side’s top scorer on the day, kicking three points from play. On a tough afternoon, in miserable conditions, it was a display of leadership that the rest just didn’t match.

Autumn brought a really fine - if brief - club campaign with the O'Donovan Rossas from the self-employed joiner, whose younger sibling Shane has been drafted in by new boss Damian Barton.

It’s an even tougher road for Shane to try and break through. The man-of-the-match display against Antrim will have done him no harm but they both know that, with almost 50 men competing for spots come the visit of Fermanagh next weekend, nothing will come easy.

Least of all promotion. The term ‘Division Two’ might as well have been replaced by ‘The Mini Ulster Championship’ already, and it hasn’t begun yet.

Derry will face Fermanagh, Cavan, Tyrone and Armagh in the league, as well as Galway, Laois and Meath. Three of the four Ulster derbies are away from home for the Oak Leafers.

“That Division Two is nearly all Ulster and you want to be winning games and setting down a marker for the Ulster Championship," Heavron says.

“We’ll have played Tyrone four times by the first round of Ulster. You want to be setting down markers. Fermanagh, Cavan, Armagh, you have a lot of good teams in there. It’ll be tough to come out of it, but you can’t worry about that. You have to set that target for yourself, to come out of Division Two and push on."

It’s Tyrone for whom Derry have eyes, of course. Even last weekend’s McKenna Cup clash felt like a clash of old. Five thousand-plus in the middle of January, blood-curdling hits, name-calling, ‘there’s no London in Tyrone’ and ‘two of your All-Irelands don’t count’ and all that. That was just in the stands.

Down on the pitch, the intensity was not of McKenna Cup football. With a first Championship meeting since Tyrone’s comfortable 2009 Ulster semi-final win on the horizon, there is an edge to that rivalry again.

“When we went down to 14 men, we could have crumbled, but we stood our ground. We kept coming back, even when we went behind," he says.

“They’re one of the top teams in the country and it was tight enough going, but most of the boys coming out on our side were happy enough with some things.”

As year four of his inter-county career comes upon him, Heavron’s lack of Championship experience ensures his profile remains low.

In one sense, that fits the bill. But if the injuries stay off him, there might be no hiding it in future.

VERDICT


THERE is little time for regrouping. After two utterly contrasting seasons in the top flight, Derry return to the second tier.

But the insular, Ulster-heavy nature of Division Two is set to make for a campaign in which Damian Barton will at, the very least, find out a lot about the squad he has inherited.

The new manager has come in and the early signs are he will adopt a counter-attacking approach. That brings them into line with pretty much everyone they will meet in the league between next Saturday and the start of April.

The fixture gods haven’t been particularly kind to Derry. They are on the road for four games (as they were last season), three of which are at the homes of Ulster rivals. Breffni Park, Healy Park and the Athletic Grounds are likely to provide Barton with the answers he seeks about his new charges.

While he’s been working with a squad of almost 50 in the early weeks, and so many of them are newly introduced, Barton’s early line-ups have suggested he won’t change too much, personnel-wise, from what Brian McIver regarded as his core.

The obvious loss of leadership came in the form of Fergal Doherty’s retirement. With Patsy Bradley also still on the casualty list and PJ McCloskey’s knee never having properly healed, Derry must begin to mould a new midfield from somewhere.

They have youthful options in that regard and it will depend on whether Barton can offer and display the patience to give his younger charges a proper chance to bed in. But the fact they have started off with a fair degree of stability in terms of the positioning of key personnel may be enough to propel Derry into the heart of the promotion race.

LOOK OUT FOR


THE sheer expanse of the pre-National League squad Damian Barton was carrying has offered the opportunity to more than a handful of young players. And there have been those that have grasped the chance, none moreso than a trio of Magherafelt players.

With Danny Heavron and Emmett McGuckin having established themselves over recent seasons, Heavron’s younger brother Shane and team-mates Conor Kearns - both of whom won man-of-the-match awards - and Ryan Ferris have done their chances absolutely no harm during the McKenna Cup.

Without question, there will be opportunities at midfield throughout the year. Niall Holly’s well-timed progression last season has him in pole position but, with Patsy Bradley’s injury troubles re-escalated, Conor Murphy, Conor McAtamney and Brian Óg McGilligan will all fancy their chances of filling the breach.

McAtamney and McGilligan both made several appearances last season without either ever getting a proper run of games that would have allowed them to bed in.

The other big addition, or rather re-addition, is Ryan Bell. His form for Ballinderry last season was superb and he has looked in superb shape in January. His presence in the forward line could very well offset any scoring worries.

2016 FIXTURES

NFL DIVISION TWO


Sunday, January 31 (2pm): Fermanagh (h); Saturday, February 6 (7pm): Cavan (a); Sunday, February 28 (2pm): Galway (H); Saturday, March 5 (7pm): Tyrone (a); Sunday, March 13 (2pm): Laois (a); Sunday, March 27 (2pm): Meath (H); Sunday, April 3 (2pm): Armagh (a)

ULSTER SFC QUARTER-FINAL


Sunday, May 22: Derry v Tyrone

RECENT NFL RECORD


2015: Division One; Points tally: 3; Finished: bottom, relegated


2014: Division One; Points tally: 9; Finished: second, beat Mayo in semi-final, lost to Dublin in final


2013: Division Two; Points tally: 11; Finished: first, promoted, beat Westmeath in final


2012: Division Two; Points tally: 5; Finished: sixth


2011: Division Two; Points: 10; Finished: third

2015 LEAGUE RESULTS


Donegal 1-15 Derry 0-12; Derry 0-13 Kerry 1-17; Tyrone 0-11 Derry 1-8; Derry 1-13 Mayo 2-12; Monaghan 0-15 Derry 0-10; Dublin 0-8 Derry 0-4; Derry 2-15 Cork 1-11

2015 SFC RESULTS


Ulster SFC quarter-final: Derry 0-12 Down 0-11; Ulster SFC semi-final: Donegal 1-9 Derry 0-10; All-Ireland SFC Qualifiers round 2B: Derry 1-16 Wexford 0-10; All-Ireland SFC qualifiers round 3B: Galway 1-11 Derry 0-8

LAST CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM


All-Ireland SFC qualifiers round 3B, July 18, Salthill: Galway 1-11 Derry 0-8: T Mallon; O Duffy, D McBride, B Rogers; SL McGoldrick, C McKaigue, L McGoldrick; N Holly, F Doherty; B Heron (0-2 frees), M Lynch, E Lynn; D Heavron (0-3), C O’Boyle (0-1), E Bradley (0-1); Subs: K McKaigue (for Rogers, 30, black card); E McGuckin for Lynch (36); M McIver for L McGoldrick (53); P Bradley for Holly (53); N Forrester (0-1) for Lynn (61); Yellow card: N Holly (44); Black cards: Rogers (30); Heavron (69).