Ulster Club SFC quarter-final: Derrygonnelly (Fermanagh) v Trillick (Tyrone) (Brewster Park, 2.30pm tomorrow)
NOVEMBER in Ulster is very different from Australia but these ‘Neighbours’ will both feel at ‘Home and Away’ in Brewster Park.
Derrygonnelly have that ‘home advantage’ but Enniskillen is closer to Trillick than Omagh and plenty of their players know the venue from their schooldays at St Michael’s.
It won’t turn the world upside down if there’s a rare victory for a Fermanagh side over a Tyrone team given Derrygonnelly’s greater recent experience in provincial competition.
This particular inter-county pairing is infrequent, the last such meeting coming in 2010 when Coalisland saw off Roslea by three points. The Shamrocks were the Erne County standard-bearers in the first half of this decade, but only won one of five matches over four campaigns, against Cavan first-time winners Ballinagh in 2013.
Derrygonnelly have done better, indeed they came agonisingly close to reaching the final two years ago, before losing a semi-final replay score-fest to Cavan Gaels by 5-7 to 2-15. That followed a quarter-final victory over their fellow Harps from Armagh and they added another win in this year’s preliminary round, against Antrim champs Cargin.
Only around half of this Trillick team have Ulster experience, from 2015, when they edged out Donegal’s Naomh Conaill (who are also back in the competition this year) before succumbing to a strong Scotstown side by two points in the semi-final.
Of course, some of the Reds have serious experience at the highest level, with four having playing in the 2018 All-Ireland Final – Tyrone captain (and twice an Allstar) Mattie Donnelly and his brother Richie, Rory Brennan and his brother Lee.
The quality that those four bring to this level of football should be enough to send Trillick into the last four, against either Down champions Kilcoo or Magherafelt of Derry.
Their adaptability is important too: Mattie, as he has done with Tyrone, can play anywhere from the half-back line up, although he has mostly been operating in attack with Trillick. Richie is more of a ‘midfield up’ man, but both are options to go to the forefront of the attack if physical presence is required in there. It may well be, given the slighter stature of players such as Lee Brennan, James Garrity, and Ryan Gray.
Rory Brennan’s flexibility is well known with Tyrone, but Lee also has the ability to play in different lines, often dropping deeper, as much a playmaker as a poacher with Trillick.
Yet Derrygonnelly definitely have the quality themselves to cause something of an upset, with the inter-county experience of the Joneses, Ryan and Conall, full-back Tiarnan Daly, and former Fermanagh defender Mickey Jones.
The Harps were good value for their opening win over Cargin, in Corrigan Park to boot, building on two goals inside the opening 15 minutes to see out a reasonably comfortable 2-10 to 0-12 success.
However, there were several factors in the Fermanagh men’s favour – injuries to key Cargin players after having county final replay – which won’t be in place tomorrow.
The competitive element will add spice to a clash between two clubs who play an annual challenge match, although they might have been even more regular rivals had historical events gone in different directions.
It’s now 640 years on from the Battle of Dreigh Hill, when the triumph of the O’Neills over the Maguires set the county boundary between Tyrone and Fermanagh. Yet in 1933 the Fermanagh County Board was trying to lay claim to the recently-formed Trillick St McCartan’s club, only for the Ulster Council to uphold Tyrone’s jurisdiction.
Half the Trillick team went to St Michael’s Enniskillen, with many of them coached first year football by Derrgonnelly boss Brendan Rasdale, and they’re now under the direction of another Fermanagh native, Nigel Seaney.
Both clubs will have their sights set beyond this little local difficulty, but neither will dare look past their direct opponents, never mind think about adding to the short list of clubs from these two counties which have reached the provincial decider.
Still, Trillick are entitled to believe that can at least go up against the representatives of either Down or Derry.
The Tyrone championship is arguably a mini-Ulster in itself. Certainly this year Trillick progressed past clubs who all have recent provincial experience, albeit mostly in the first half of this decade: Dromore (2011), Clonoe (2013), Coalisland (2010 and 2018), and Errigal Ciaran (2012).
With a defence marshalled by Ruairi and Damian Kelly, the latter well able to launch and indeed play a part in attacks, the Reds can contain Derrygonnelly and then outscore them.
The Harps have tuned up well for this quarter-final with that win in Belfast, but Trillick are more likely to make the short journey home from Enniskillen as victors.
RECENT RESULTS IN ULSTER:
DERRYGONNELLY
2019
Prelim: Cargin (Antrim) 0-12 Derrygonnelly 2-10
2018
Prelim: Scotstown (Monaghan) 2-13 Derrygonnelly 1-11
2017
Quarter-final: Derrygonnelly 2-8 Armagh Harps (Armagh) 1-8
Semi-finals: Derrygonnelly 0-12 Cavan Gaels 0-12 (aet) (Clones)
Cavan Gaels 5-7 Derrygonnelly 2-15 (Clones)
2016
Quarter-final: Slaughtneil (Derry) 0-12 Derrygonnelly 0-7
2015
Prelim: Slaughtneil (Derry) 4-13 Derrygonnelly 1-4 (Owenbeg)
TRILLICK
2015
Quarter-final: Naomh Conaill (Donegal) 1-11 Trillick (Tyrone) 2-9
Semi-final: Scotstown 2-9 Trillick 2-7 (Brewster Park)
