Allianz Football League Division Two: Clare v Donegal (tomorrow, 2pm, Ennis)
PERHAPS the best measure of how far Clare football has come is the fact that nobody paid much heed to them winning the McGrath Cup by beating Cork two weeks ago.
It was their first pre-season title in 11 years and was undoubtedly diluted by Kerry’s absence from the competition, but the Bannermen have been on an unmistakable upward trajectory.
You have to go back to 2012 to find the last time they failed to improve their final league position. From finishing third in Division Four in 2013, they’ve won two promotions and tip-toed happily in-between.
Last year they won in Down and Cork, and drew with Cavan and Tipperary. Had those draws been wins, they would have been playing top flight football now.
They are, as has been occasionally proven, still a way short of the top bracket. Who that stands outside it isn’t?
Yet the world around them continues to offer very little beyond disrespect. They start into Division Two as joint-favourites to go down with Fermanagh.
Granted, this year’s second tier brings a lot more muscle than last year’s. Armagh are in a better place than either of the two they’ve replaced, while Kildare and Donegal would both have a strong basis to argue that they’re stronger than the two that bypassed them on the way to the big league.
It does push Clare down the pecking order, though again it’s been brushed over that they had Armagh practically beaten in the Athletic Grounds last summer.
There’s little to suggest that Meath or Cork or even Tipp have outflanked them over the winter.
Colm Collins remains in charge for a sixth year and no-one of major significance has dropped out. The likes of Dermot Coughlan, Dale Masterson and Jayme O’Sullivan had good Januarys and that may have embossed their resources once more.
In the grand scheme, it’s not the worst fixture Declan Bonner could have asked for to begin Donegal’s attempted ascent back up the hill.
Theirs has been an exceptionally smooth transition from one team to the next. The All-Ireland winning team is almost all gone now barring a couple of men that remain key to the thing, and yet they’re the reigning Ulster champions.
There is still a bit of work to do before they find themselves in real All-Ireland contention, and Division Two is not really the place they want to be doing it.
Michael Murphy and Frank McGlynn remain sidelined for another weekend at least, though Eoghan Bán Gallagher could be back. Given their rotations at full-back, and the threat of Gary Brennan, there’s a fair chance he’ll play at number three.
It could be the Brennan at the other end, Jamie, who makes the headlines again though. He was outstanding in the McKenna Cup.
This could become a purgatorial spring for the Tír Chonaill men, especially given that they’ve a decent fixture list that will bring Meath and Armagh to Ballybofey, Kildare to Ballyshannon and Fermanagh to Letterkenny.
Minus the Gaoth Dobhair contingent, Donegal will not look all-that familiar in parts, but there’s a real flourish of quality about the youth they’re introducing that will see them right.
The two points will come back on the bus to the north-west, but Clare can lay down a marker about their own ambitions too.
