AT HALF-TIME in Owenbeg last Saturday Down led Derry in the Christy Ring Cup semi-final by one point.
The sides had been level six times but Derry emerged for the second half with intent. That was evident from their body language and the purpose and determination audible from the voice of their captain Seán McCullagh.
Derry hit four unanswered points inside the opening seven minutes until a James Coyle goal levelled it up again for Down. The sides were level on two more occasions before Derry pressed their foot on the accelerator, hitting seven of the next eight points and speeding out of sight.
At face value Derry hurling looks like it’s finally on the move. While Antrim were down a host of regulars, Derry ran them to one point in last year’s Ulster final. Tom McLean showed how serious he was about 2015 when he recruited Dinny Cahill as coach last October. The backroom team was further beefed up by Kieran O’Connell from Loughgiel Shamrocks, while Eoin Bradley, a former Tyrone senior footballer, was announced as the team's strength and conditioning coach.
Last year’s Ulster final showed Derry’s potential, especially if they were properly prepared. They had only small numbers at training last summer, while four players weren’t even around for the Ulster semi-final replay; they decided to go to Kilkenny on a training weekend with their club.
It will be a major shock if Derry beat Kerry in the Christy Ring final, but at least there has been progress evident this season. Anyway, the result is not really the most important aspect of Saturday. The big question now is what are Derry going to do next?
Down were in a similar position two years ago. They were actually in a better position afterwards when finally winning the Christy Ring Cup for the first time. They had momentum and confidence, but that soon evaporated. All that saved them from potential relegation from the Christy Ring last summer was Tyrone failing to field in the Ring/Rackard play-off.
That question of where Derry go next is even more pertinent because of the team’s age profile. Of the side expected to start against Kerry, six, possibly seven, are around the 30 mark or older. A raft of other players are in their mid-20s, while only a handful are around the 23 mark or younger. So if some of the older players, huge leaders during their careers, many of whom form the spine of the team, depart afterwards, is there another generation of young, or committed, players ready to fill that potential void?
History sounds a warning. When Derry beat Antrim in successive years at U21 level in 2008 and '09, they did more than just win Ulster titles. They made a huge statement of their potential. Those Antrim teams they beat came from the highly-rated minor squads that narrowly lost All-Ireland quarter-finals to Limerick and Galway in 2005 and '06, and which would go on to form the core of Antrim’s senior team.
Those Derry teams were stocked with talent and some class players, which was evident in their 2008 All-Ireland U21 semi-final performance against Tipperary. Many of those players from those two squads should be the key pillars on the current senior team, but only three are part of the panel for Saturday’s match.
Many of them were highly talented dual players with big football ambitions, but there still wasn’t enough done to keep that talented group together. Four are with the Derry senior footballers, one went to Australia, a couple more drifted away, while many others are playing with their clubs, with football a priority.
The lure of football will always be a huge attraction in Derry, but if the fall-off rate was that high with such a talented bunch of hurlers, there will always be a concern as to how far the county’s hurlers can ever really travel.
A couple of the best young players in the county are not part of the current senior hurling panel. Slaughtneil are a highly talented hurling team, good enough to beat a host of top club teams from around the country. They have won the last five U21 and two senior championships - but have nobody on the senior hurling panel.
Slaughtneil are the current Ulster senior club football champions and were involved up until St Patrick’s Day, but not having anyone involved with the county hurlers still underlines how the prestige and attraction of club football will always be a factor in the hurlers’ chances of making sustained progress.
The players may be better looked after now than what Derry hurlers were normally accustomed to but has anything really changed either? For most of the last six weeks, there have been little or no club hurling league games, a vacuum in stark contrast to the huge volume of club football games played. How can hurlers improve or develop, or even stay interested, when they don't have games on a regular basis?
The irony is that some hurling league games were fixed over the last week. Certain clubs refused to field eight days ago because they had players involved against Down a few days later.
Ahead of Saturday's final some hurling fixtures were originally scheduled for last night. No county players were expected to play in those games but it still infuriates hurling people to see matches fixed on such an important week for the senior hurlers, especially when there has been so little hurling club activity over the last couple of months. When some club football matches involving dual players were postponed, football people were annoyed. Nobody doubts that Derry is primarily a football county but are the hurlers not also entitled to have all their players ahead of such an important game?
Saturday is an opportunity for Derry to showcase their hurlers on the grand stage but, win or lose, the real question is what Derry, and the power-brokers within the county, are really going to do next? Are they going to take the next step forward? Will they get that chance to take that next step? Or are Derry going to end up on the same old road that keeps leading them back to the same destination?
