LET'S be honest: did we really expect Derry to give Tyrone a game?
Given their relegation to Division Three and the absence of a number of talented and skilful players from the Derry panel this year, most would agree that Damian Barton is fighting a losing battle.
It really is quite sad and, while some in the county may argue that the club scene in Derry is strong and very competitive, I believe that your county team is the shop window.
Neither the club scene nor the county team needs to suffer and it should be a marriage of convenience even if neither is in love with each other.
I have never been in favour of a ‘B’ Championship, a tiered competition or the segregation of the weaker teams.
Winning Sam Maguire was never about the Carlows or the Waterfords of this world.
They have never won it and the reality is that they probably never will.
So let’s stop kidding ourselves and pretending that somehow the Championship 30 years ago was any different. It wasn’t.
What the back door did since its introduction in 2001 was to lift the aspirational levels of the Carlows and the Waterfords which, as a consequence, has led to the development of better preparation levels at the lower end of the inter-county scale.
Teams dream bigger now. Rightly or wrongly the expectation is there.
Derry have won one All-Ireland, in 1993 and they haven’t won Ulster since 1998.
Meanwhile since then, Tyrone have won three All-Irelands, more Ulster titles and a number of National Leagues, not to mention the fact that they have dominated the best part of a decade in the Noughties.
Yet we still expected Derry to give Tyrone a game, based on a nostalgic notion that these games have always been close in the past.
There may have been the odd year since the millennium when Derry got the better of Tyrone, but not since the ’90s could you say there has been a genuine rivalry. Barton played on Derry teams with the likes of Tony Scullion, Brian McGilligan and Henry Downey, who would have died before they would let a Tyrone man run down the middle of the field with a hairband and kick a score.
The reality is that Derry players allowed this to happen and these are the committed bunch who have actually decided to throw their lot in with the county.
There will be a few players in Derry who wouldn’t commit to the county and will be glad to see Tyrone beat them, which will vindicate their reasons for not committing.
These players are not just in Derry. I suspect that in Fermanagh and Antrim you will find the same.
Players who have decided that the USA, the club or Coronation Street is a much more worthwhile enterprise.
Do you really think putting Derry in a secondary competition will entice these lads back into the fold?
I would say that this is highly doubtful.
The weak are getting weaker and the strong stronger.
I have previously said that there are three to four contenders and the rest are just making up the numbers.
I hope that in time I am proved wrong but until that time, I see no team outside of Dublin, Kerry, Mayo and Donegal who could possibly make up the last four.
And what of Tyrone, you may ask?
Well Tyrone will be there or thereabouts and Sean Cavanagh’s contribution is still winning them matches.
Peter Harte and Mattie Donnelly were both well marshalled by Derry and when they meet better teams the quality will be there to neutralise Tyrone’s key men.
For the time being, though, Tyrone have no fear of losing titles to Derry. When Derry play Tyrone they will beat themselves.
EVEN though neither Down nor Armagh have had much to shout about in recent years, it is a match I have been looking forward to all year.
I hope for the sake of the Ulster Championship that it is much more competitive than what has gone before us thus far.
I suspect it will be.
Down escaped relegation with the last kick of the game against Cork and Armagh missed out on promotion with the last kick of their match against Tipperary.
So we have two evenly matched teams.
Down have a few walking wounded and I think that the outcome could well depend on their availability.
Ryan Johnston, Peter Turley and Aiden Carr are all carrying knocks, while Jerome Johnston hasn’t had much game time.
The Johnston brothers are match-winners and Down will be hoping that we can get enough ball inside to them against a rather suspect Armagh full-back line who have a tendency to leak goals.
I hope that Down go on the front foot and attack Armagh at every opportunity.
Down have traditionally always been at their best when they have used their attack as their form of defence.
I realise that times have changed and if you fail to adapt it will be at your cost in the modern game, and this has cost Down games in the past against ultra-defensive teams.
I believe that there is a another way, though, and if Kerry are the standard bearers of this adaptation the typical Down psyche can be adapted too.
Armagh will have their own potential match-winners in Jamie Clarke and Stefan Campbell.
They are players who could push for a place in any of the top teams and when you are looking to win national honours, there has to be a smattering of these types of players right throughout the team.
Kieran McGeeney and Eamonn Burns (below) have been there and done that in their own duels over the years with Armagh and Down and that rivalry will not have dimmed one bit in either man.
These are different times though and while silverware has eluded both counties over the years, for supporters the only game they ever want to win is the one against each other.
For the players, my advice is to enjoy days like these, they don’t happen very often.
I am due to meet Benny Tierney outside the game. Next to the ice cream van, he says, as ‘’er indoors’ has given him the Sunday off and he plans to make the most of it.
He says that he might even make it into the game...
