Football

Glenties to leave Kilcoo feeling blue again

Kilcoo will want to get Ryan Johnston on the ball and running at Naomh Conaill. Picture by Cliff Donaldson
Kilcoo will want to get Ryan Johnston on the ball and running at Naomh Conaill. Picture by Cliff Donaldson Kilcoo will want to get Ryan Johnston on the ball and running at Naomh Conaill. Picture by Cliff Donaldson

AIB Ulster Club SFC final: Naomh Conaill v Kilcoo (tomorrow, 2pm, Healy Park, live on TG4)

GOOD things do not come to those that wait. They come to those that go and get them.

When Paul McIver stepped down as Kilcoo manager last winter, they didn’t wait. They went hunting the best replacement they could find. Mickey Moran was available, and they went and got him.

To wait nine years to return to an Ulster final hardly constitutes a famine for Naomh Conaill given that they’d never won a county title until 2005 and this is just their third since, but it’s not that they’ve sat on their hands in between.

They played Crossmaglen in that 2010 provincial decider. It’s a game that current boss Martin Regan, a player that day, has never watched back, but not one that he has huge regrets over.

“You might look at the scoreline and think ‘we could have beaten that Crossmaglen team, they only beat us by three points’. But probably 90 per cent of the games Crossmaglen won in their prime was by two or three points,” he said.

Three points will be the most that decides this one too.

It’s the Glenties’ second final and Kilcoo’s third, all of them this decade.

Some would align the Down champions’ recent run with them being owed one, but they only need look down the road at the Mayobridge side that enjoyed an almost identical domination of the county in the 2000s, but never got over the line in Ulster, losing their two finals.

This is undoubtedly their best chance since 2013, when they beat Crossmaglen in a quarter-final replay only to lose the semi-final to a Ballinderry team led by none other than their coach now, Conleith Gilligan.

They had two near misses against Slaughtneil in the 2016 final and then the preliminary round the following year, though it would be the latter they’d regret more given how they finished the game in the ascendancy but missed chances to rescue it.

Only three of the Kilcoo starting side are over 30, namely Conor Laverty, Niall McEvoy (both 34) and Aidan Branagan (33).

They’ve two starting teenagers in Ryan McEvoy and Anthony Morgan, and a big chunk of lads in their early-to-mid 20s.

And yet there is the inescapable sense that, just as it is for this generation in Naomh Conaill, this is the best and final chance.

If it’s free-flowing, high-scoring football you’re after then Healy Park maybe isn’t the place for you. But last year’s final contained none of that either, and still offered a truly gripping 80 minutes.

At the end of it, Gaoth Dobhair became the first Donegal side in 43 years to put their name on the Seamus Mac Ferran Cup. They’d been the best side in Ulster last autumn, and they got their reward on a day when there were only paper-thin margins between them and Scotstown.

If you’re basing your pre-match judgement on who has been the best side to this point, then it is the Glenties.

They crept quietly into a third straight Donegal final but they’ve made plenty of noise in the last eight weeks. Their brand of football might look dated among more modern trends but it’s a 15-year-old Jim McGuinness template that, with a few tucks here and there, has served them incredibly well.

Regan argued at last week’s press launch for the final that Kilcoo’s style is more closely aligned to the former Donegal manager. And perhaps he has a point.

In their semi-final win over Derrygonnelly, Kilcoo often had Jerome Johnston up front on his own. The Glenties, meanwhile, make a concerted effort to try and keep two inside, which is a key part of the plan to toss an odd early one in.

They moved away from that against Clontibret, dropping Kieran Gallagher and putting Eoghan McGettigan back in. The latter will stay in, but they will have looked at Kilcoo’s lack of height around the park and might fancy Gallagher inside again alongside Charles McGuinness.

Kilcoo had Ryan McEvoy as their sweeper against Derrygonnelly but, despite wearing 13, he could well find himself stationed at full-back again, as he did for brief passages in their narrow semi-final win.

Aaron Branagan switched with brother Aidan at the heart of the defence too, and that will most likely be the way Mickey Moran goes again if Glenties do start turfing it in.

Where Kilcoo will find a major issue is in terms of controlling the tempo and direction of the game as they’d like to.

Winning ball off kickouts, their own or the opposition, has been a problem right through. They simply lack the natural height to compete a lot of the time, and rely on spoiling and being sharp enough around breaks instead.

They have scored either 11 or 12 points in seven of their eight championship games, and it’s been the supplementary goals that have squeezed them to this point.

At times against Derrygonnelly they had Jerome Johnston in acres of space but never lifted their heads to kick the ball, which was especially frustrating given that he had the beating of Tiernan Daly.

Conor Laverty played very deep and will be expected to do the same here. It was their captain who provided that one piece of magic in the semi-final to turn it their way.

The Glenties aren’t big scorers either. Brendan McDyer and Jeaic McKelvey are both finishers being asked to play deeper roles.

There is, and will be, very little to separate them. Naomh Conaill have found their way out a path that included a trio of games against the Ulster champions, but Kilcoo would point to their own tight games with Burren, Warrenpoint and Derrygonnelly.

Mickey Moran’s side have that same thing about them that carried Glenties over the line in Donegal – a stomach turned once too often by defeats in big games.

A goal would be a monumental score in the game, and Kilcoo have had a knack of finding one when they’ve needed it.

They might feel they've earned an Ulster title over the last eight years, but it doesn't always work like that.

Naomh Conaill have been the best team in Ulster this year. And the best team tends to find a way to win these games.