Football

Former Tyrone ace Dermot Carlin looks on in awe of Killyclogher young guns

St Mary's Killyclogher have had just nine days to prepare for their Ulster opener against Cargin
St Mary's Killyclogher have had just nine days to prepare for their Ulster opener against Cargin St Mary's Killyclogher have had just nine days to prepare for their Ulster opener against Cargin

LEE Brennan’s winning point for Trillick in the dying embers of last year’s nerve-shredding Tyrone SFC decider burned a hole in the souls of the St Mary’s Killyclogher players.

The Killyclogher players met soon after that heart-wrenching defeat and made a pact: that they would not allow it to happen again – at least, not in the life-time of this group.

But they would go forward without their manager Kieran Howe.

The former Killyclogher player was a key player in the club's first county title success in 2003.

“Five years ago we were facing relegation,” says defender Dermot Carlin.

“Kieran Howe took over the team five years ago and he just got us working hard again. He turned us around within four years; within three years we’d won a league and the following year we were beaten in the final and that’s when Kieran stepped away."

The vastly experienced Dominic Corrigan took over and realised immediately the foundations his predecessor laid.

Carlin adds: “Dom said it himself; he didn’t have to change much. It was small things; his experience was a big thing.

“It was actually Kieran himself who said: ‘I’ve done as much as I can here – we need something else.’

“Dom has been there and he knows how to win – and that’s what we were after.

“Within five minutes of speaking with Dom, I knew straight away that this was our man.”

In recent years, Carlin’s path has been pock-mocked by various injuries.

A few years ago he was diagnosed with a bulging disc in his lower back.

But it was only on the doorstep of this season’s Championship campaign that it struck with unforgettable venom.

“I remember we played Kildress in the League and I said to myself: ‘You’re not sharp here.’ So I tried to push myself at training and I pushed it. I knew it would be sore the next day but it stayed with me.”

Their first Championship outing against Errigal Ciaran was only a week away when Carlin was crawling up the stairs on all fours, staying in bed for a couple of hours before the spasm pain would inevitably strike.

Howe’s words acted as a soothing balm.

“Kieran says to me: ‘At least you know you’ve played football!’

And so Carlin has been forced to the periphery of Killyclogher’s incredible run which resulted in last Friday night’s county final replay mauling of Coalisland Fianna.

“I got maybe seven or eight minutes in the replay because we were winning by so much. I wouldn’t have been coming on otherwise, I’d imagine,” Carlin modestly suggests.

County ace Mark Bradley produced a majestic performance against Coalisland, hitting eight points – six from play.

Carlin is still only 32 but talks like a man beyond his years when he recalls young Bradley bounding past his front door toe-tapping the ball all the way down to the club's pitch most evenings.

“Mark lives about 100 yards from me and when he was younger he’d be going past the front of the house heading over to the pitch, left foot, right foot. His dad had him over there all the time and it’s standing to him now.

“The fellas we have playing now – Conall McCann, Tiernan McCann, Mark Bradley – have really taken us to a new level.”

Alongside the invincibility of youth luck, Carlin insists, has played a key role in the St Mary’s men climbing the summit in Tyrone.

Last year, when they were crying out for the occasional rub of the green that never came. Twelve months on, fortune favoured the brave.

“Against Trillick, Mattie Donnelly was carrying a bit of a knock and he didn’t have the influence he’d liked to have had,” says Carlin.

“Sometimes you need a bit of luck. Last year we probably didn’t get the luck. We got it this year. Coalisland’s first two shots in the first game hit the post and dropped to one of our boys.

“Had they gone over it might have been a different story. You know then that luck might be with us because you don’t win anything unless you get a bit of luck.”

The whole point of stepping away from the Tyrone senior football panel two years ago was to play more football with his club.

A couple of times Carlin doubted his decision to retire from the inter-county scene.

But then he thinks of his two-year-old “football-mad” son Cormac and seven-month-old Catherine and those moments of doubt disappear as if they were never there in the first place.

“It wasn’t an easy decision to walk away from Tyrone – 13 years. There was nothing easy about it,” he says.

“This time last year when we were beaten [by Trillick] I was sort of thinking: ‘Jeez, was it the right call?’

“But it was totally the right call.

“I’ve a little two-year-old son and a seven-month-old girl… The good thing is we train at 8 o’clock, so I help put the kids to bed at half-seven and the pitch is only two minutes away.

“Whereas Tyrone training was at half-seven and you were there for half-six and you’d get food afterwards.

“You have to weigh it up. You’d be heading away for weekends with Tyrone, so you’re not seeing the kids in the evenings and you’re not seeing them at the weekends…

“It’s great seeing the kids in the evenings. You don’t want to be missing out on that.”

But just when you’ve climbed the mountain, another one awaits Carlin and his team-mates on Sunday.

Due to a waterlogged pitch and a final replay, the Tyrone champions have had a mere nine days to prepare for their Ulster quarter-final with Erin’s Own, Cargin.

And you could probably shave off one or two more days for the post-match celebrations in the parish.

“We’re going to be up against it,” insists Carlin.

“I know a lot of the Cargin lads. I was in Boston with Ciaran Close many years ago and I know the McCanns [Michael and Tomas]. Those boys are pushing for Ulsters now which is no surprise.

“We are probably where Cargin were last year. They have a lot of good footballers. But we’re playing on what is nearly our home patch in Omagh and we'll give it a go.”