WHEN a 16-year-old Seamus Downey came off the bench and dropped a ball beautifully into the path of Don ‘Shaq’ Mulholland, it looked as though it was to shape the 1984 Hogan Cup final.
His Lavey clubmate rattled home his second goal of the afternoon to drag St Patrick’s, Maghera level with St Jarlath’s, Tuam with two minutes to play. But it was the Galway men who got the decisive score with the last kick. Mark Butler’s superb 40-yard effort was met with devastation from the young men from Derry.
It was to be the first of 10 appearances at headquarters for Downey. His inter-county career with Derry brought him there eight times, between All-Ireland semi-finals, a final and a few National League deciders. He was also the fulcrum of the Lavey attack when they won the All-Ireland club title in 1992.
A generation later, his son Shea is preparing for what will already be his third game at headquarters, at the tender age of 18. In April, he suffered the same late heartbreak as his father had 22 years earlier, when St Pat’s failed to hold on in the dying minutes to lose a Hogan Cup final against St Brendan’s, Killarney.
Shea Downey was wing-forward on the side that lost to Kerry in last year’s All-Ireland minor semi-final. He was also part of the Maghera squad that lost the 2014 Hogan Cup final to yet another Kerry opponent, Pobalscoil Chorca Dhuibhne, though he was an unused substitute that afternoon.
But for the young Oak Leaf captain and so many of his team-mates, the benefit is Croke Park already holds nothing new to them. Nothing to fear: “There’s a good few of us from last year,” says the Lavey teenager, moments after stepping back through the front door of the family home after getting drenched at Owenbeg on Tuesday evening.
“Even the ones who weren’t there last year, they were nearly all involved with Maghera in the Hogan, so it gives us a bit of experience. There are a lot of leaders in our squad, even boys who weren’t on those teams, boys like Conor Doherty and some of the older lads. They definitely lead and it helps, having those leaders on the pitch.”
Owenbeg itself has been of massive benefit. The new pitch, opened in 2014, is spared from the day-to-day grind of teams training on it. But in the run up to a match like this, it’s a great resource for Damian McErlain to have at his disposal.
The pitch measures the exact dimensions of Croke Park, allowing Derry to replicate how things might turn out at high noon on Sunday: “It’s a massive pitch. That’s why Owenbeg’s good. We were training on the main pitch tonight and the managers were telling us it’s the same size as Croke Park, width-wise. That definitely helps, but it’s a lot of ground to cover,” says Downey.
The stigma of meeting teams from Kerry is just starting to grow on this promising generation of Derry teams, though. Those two Hogan Cup final defeats and last year’s All-Ireland semi-final loss were the only games of significance those particular Derry and Maghera sides lost.
To focus on that is to lose focus on what is important: “Maybe in the back of our heads, it’s there, but we’re just trying to focus on the fact that it’s a different team we’re playing and a different team we’re playing with.
“The other losses were hard to take because they were there for the win and we maybe just didn’t perform as well as we could have. But you try not to think about those. Hopefully, we can right that wrong on Sunday.”
Controversial refereeing decisions have had their bearing on that record as well. Talisman forward Shane McGuigan was black-carded against Kerry last year, having been deemed to pull a defender down just when the Oak Leafers needed him to spearhead a strong third-quarter.
But a nervy first-half had just as much impact and that’s where the real regret lies: “I’d say we didn’t play for most of the game, in fairness. Shane’s black card didn’t help things, that had a big impact on us. But we definitely didn’t play," Downey added.
“I don’t know what it was, whether it was the nerves of the occasion or Croke Park or what, I don’t know. Hopefully, we won’t make that mistake this time.”
In April, Maghera looked to be in control of the Hogan Cup final, until Conor Glass was sent-off for an off-the-ball incident that wasn’t picked up by the cameras and of which the Glen man protested his innocence.
Best for Derry if they stay on the right side of John Hickey then, the Carlow man charged with manning the middle of this repeat encounter. There will, in all likelihood, be just seven of the 39 players who appeared in Croke Park last August back in action on Sunday afternoon.
Kerry have come through the front door for the fifth year in succession, having comfortably overcome Clare in front of a crowd of just 808 in the Munster final. The traditional pairing with the Ulster senior final ensured thousands saw Derry’s defeat by Donegal.
On this two-year journey, Downey has faced almost everything there is to face. Derry were massive underdogs against Tyrone, but played superbly in the quarter-final. They were big favourites against Armagh, but had to dig it out in extra-time. And then a topsy-turvy final went the way of Donegal, but not before the young Oaks had thrown everything at them.
“It was tough to take at the time,” says Downey of that defeat two weeks ago.
“It was a tight game. We had a class start, we were flying and we were missing chances as well. We were on top of them, but they went down and got a goal and that really changed the game. It gave them all the momentum and it hurt us.
“It took us a while to recover. It wasn’t until we got our goal that we really started coming back at them. It could have gone either way. We are hurting. But we got the news two days after it that we’re playing Kerry in Croke Park and it gave us a big lift, definitely. That’s where you want to be playing. That cheered us up a bit.”
An omen, they hope, is that the last time Derry were beaten in an Ulster minor final, they recovered to reach the All-Ireland decider, in 2007. It is certainly no great surprise to the 18-year-old that they are back in Croke Park, despite having had their season written off before it began.
“We weren’t surprised at ourselves, at all. I know other people were maybe surprised at us, but we always had a great belief and confidence in ourselves, even though people maybe were writing us off and labelling us as underdogs," he said.
“That maybe spurred us on, if anything. We were really up for that Tyrone game. They were labelled as favourites for that and tipped to go on and do big things, to reach an Ulster final or whatever. It was in Celtic Park and we were really up for it and really confident. We knew that we were as good as anybody. Last year’s experience definitely helped and gave us confidence that we can go on and win big games.”
Winning a big game against a team from Kerry would be a hugely significant step.
