THE smirk climbs its way across Ciaran Meenagh’s face. Here’s the question again.
“Nice to get a game in Croke Park as well, there’s questions around if Derry play well at Croke Park, do you feel like Derry are comfortable here?” asks Aisling O’Reilly of Off The Ball.
It’s nothing new. Before they’d ever set foot in the place, some people had their minds made up that Derry just wouldn’t be able to make it work at Headquarters.
Collecting his man-of-the-match award after the quarter-final win over Clare last year, Shane McGuigan referenced the noise around it in the build-up.
The two biggest games they’ve played there, against Galway in last year’s semi-final and Dublin in this spring’s league final, are waved around like a stash by those presenting the case.
“I think that’s very unfair commentary. It’s cheap and it’s easy to say that,” Meenagh argues back.
“We like coming here. I think athletically and in terms of the physical nature of our players, we’re built to play in Croke Park. That’s just my opinion.
“I know there’s a lot of opinion to the contrary out there but so be it. It would be nice if we could keep proving people wrong.”
Is it unfair? Let’s open the file, Your Honour.
The basics first. Five games, three wins, two defeats.
In victories over Offaly, Clare and Cork they amassed a healthy 6-46 and conceded an equally goal-heavy 4-22.
But the reputation they don’t want is built on their other two visits.
In last year’s All-Ireland semi-final they scored just 1-6 in defeat by Galway, who were eight points up by the time Lachlan Murray squirreled home a late goal.
Yet Derry had completely dominated the first 20 minutes, penning Galway back, hitting three unanswered points. They should have had at least four more before half-time.
They studied that game “forensically” as a group over the winter, Meenagh said at the weekend.
“People read a lot into the final result – we really struggled on our own kickouts after half-time in that game and the momentum swung with Damien Comer’s two goals. If we’d taken our chances, how would that have affected Galway?”
At the end of spring this year, they lost a Division Two final to Dublin by 4-6 to 0-11.
The first half of that game was almost as good a half an hour as Derry have produced. They won 50 per cent of Dublin’s kickouts in that period and kept the Dubs to just 0-4 in 35 minutes of football in Croke Park, while carrying a threat that opened up a big goalscoring chance for Niall Loughlin just before the break.
They still went in two points up but it fell apart as they conceded four goals. Yet there’s something to be drawn from the fact that they scored 11 times to Dublin’s ten that day.
“They were missing Eoin McEvoy and Chrissy McKaigue, they conceded a few goals but they kept Dublin to six points,” says former Oak Leaf forward Conleith Gilligan.
“I think Derry have the players and the legs in the right places to match Kerry, but they’re All-Ireland champions and favourites. It’s basically a Division One team against a Division Two team and there has been a gap, but generally every time Derry have had it put up to them, they’ve stood up to it.”
Mickey Harte’s last Tyrone team were always accused of having the same problem - that when they got to Croke Park, the running game just didn’t fit the bill.
When Feargal Logan and Brian Dooher came in, they were lauded for letting Tyrone off the leash and playing a more expansive kicking game.
Except they didn’t. When Tyrone played Kerry under Harte in 2019, they kick-passed the ball 29 times. In beating the Kingdom two years later, they played just 14 kick passes.
The numbers don’t fit the narrative there and they don’t fit the story being written about Derry either.
We’ll try and get through the boring bit as quickly as we can here.
Taking a sample of their three biggest games in Croke Park against this year’s Ulster final, the win over Donegal and last year’s Ulster semi-final against Monaghan, the only place Derry have dipped statistically is in front of goal.
Everything else about their Croke Park performances stacks up the same as games in Armagh, Ballybofey and Omagh.
You can’t ignore that they’ve lost their two biggest games at Headquarters. But is that because of the venue or the opposition?
“It’s akin to the Mayo curse – if you want to start creating a narrative, that’s it, but it’s ignoring the big wins and the really strong performances that they’ve also given in Croke Park,” argues Enda McGinley.
“You can dismiss Clare but they were going really well last year. Cork have had some really credible performances, beat Mayo and Roscommon, ran Kerry really close, so we’re dismissing it as a poor performance against Cork but it’s about getting over the line.
“It’s completely down to the level of the opponent and mistakes at critical times leaving them falling behind to a higher-quality opponent that are then able to play a game that Derry are slightly weaker at.
“They say in Croke Park you need a kicking game and that Derry don’t have one but plenty of teams have won in Croke Park down the years with strong running games. That narrative doesn’t hold water.
“Derry’s game of avoiding contact and playing around the edges, that’s exactly how Dublin won several All-Ireland titles in the very recent past.
“I think when you really boil it down, there’s a few dots and very few data points sitting on the page and we’re suddenly trying to connect the dots and see something that isn’t there in order to make ourselves feel smart.
“It’s the same dimensions, same posts – I don’t see it to be honest.”
In their last four visits to HQ, Derry have kicked into Hill 16 in the second half.
Whether it’s coincidence or something else, their performance levels have stayed pretty much the same, but their scoring rate drops off at that end of the ground.
They’re getting as many, if not more, shots off into the Hill but their conversion rate has dropped on all four occasions in comparison to the first half of the same game.
The Cork game was an outlier. From their first six shots in each half, Derry scored 1-9, of which 1-4 was into the Hill.
But is it the surroundings or is it what’s happening on grass? Against Clare, they were cruising whereas in the Dublin and Galway games they were struggling, allowing their opposition to defend deeper.
“I think if you play Dublin or Kerry or Galway in any of the provincial venues, the games are the same as in Croke Park,” says Gilligan.
“The pitches are the same size but Croke Park is a wee bit different around the goalposts, it is. Shooting into the Hill is a bit different to shooting into the Canal End.
“For a free-taker, the breeze is always a wee bit different depending on where you’re shooting from. Only Sean O’Shea made light of it at the weekend.”
* * * * *
SO is it anything to do with Croke Park at all, or is it just that the games get harder?
For three-time All-Ireland winner McGinley, it’s very much the latter.
“How much exposure has Derry really got to those higher-level teams over than those really big games in Croke Park? They haven’t been in Division One.
“Ulster’s obviously a different animal but it’s not as if they’re so far ahead of the bunch and then suddenly come up short in Croke Park. Those Ulster finals in Clones, they didn’t blow Donegal or Armagh out of the water and suddenly come asunder in Croke Park.
“Galway were slightly further up the food chain and a few things go right for Derry… It felt like a wee bit of a hammering but in the cold light of day, it was two or three mistakes, a couple of bits of brilliance by Comer and that was the difference in the game.
“It wasn’t as if it was an absolute failure of a team to turn up in Croke Park. It was just a few mistakes at critical times which, against the big teams in big games, you’re gonna be lucky to get away with it and they haven’t.”
No matter how you break it down, there have been a few particular areas of struggle for Derry in the bigger games.
Galway and Dublin struggled when they trailed to the Oak Leafers but once they got ahead, they were able to defend very deep in the knowledge that Derry don’t like taking on shots from outside 30 yards.
Shane McGuigan, for all his brilliance in the last while, has missed a few frees in Croke Park. If they are to cause an upset against Kerry, they have to maximise every chance they get from a dead ball. Does that mean Conor Glass or Padraig McGrogan stepping up to a few right on the edge of the range and kicking them from the deck?
“Derry’s whole premise has been squeezing the percentages. If that means Paudie McGrogan kicking the ball off the ground, so be it,” says All-Ireland club winning player and coach Gilligan.
“They have to make sure they maximise the frees they get. Kerry the last day were very mean, so if you do only get three or four frees, you really want to be getting them absolutely bang on.
“When you look at playing Kerry in Croke Park, a bit like the Dublin team of the past, you’re gonna need to get into the 20-point arena in an All-Ireland semi-final or final,” says All-Ireland club winning player and coach Gilligan.
“You’re not winning it with 1-12 like against Cork. While Derry had seven or eight scorers at the weekend, you’re gonna need that again.
“Against Tyrone, Sean O’Shea kicks 1-5, Diarmuid O’Connor kicks 1-2 – suddenly you’ve 2-7 before you look at the Cliffords. Derry will need Shane McGuigan to get them up to ten points and for everybody else to get them another ten. That’s the challenge.
“The longer the game goes down the line, Kerry won’t fancy the game that they’re not in control of in terms of being able to kick. Kerry showed to great effect that they rated Tyrone’s midfield so they took the midfield battle out of it and conceded all the kickouts to Tyrone and took the aerial threat out.
“If they do that to Derry, the game will be played slower, at Derry’s pace. That’s where Kerry might have to gamble and force a few long, but do they really want to do that with Conor Glass about?”
If Derry are good enough to beat Kerry in an All-Ireland semi-final, so be it. If they aren’t, that’s just the way it is.
Maybe they do need to kick the ball more, or get McGuigan and Glass and Rogers on the ball and let them have a pop from 40 yards. They might fly over. If they don’t, what odds really? Derry aren’t going to work 0-20 or 3-11 down the middle of Kerry’s goal.
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“You have to back yourself on the big stage against Kerry, they’re not gonna give you a huge amount of chances,” says McGinley.
“It’s that width that Derry can wing, the ability to work the channels and get those strike runners, that’s gonna have to be absolutely on point. Any balls into Shane McGuigan or whenever he’s on to it, he has to be absolutely on point. Derry’s game can still generate enough scores if their game is really, really good but they’re gonna be tested really hard.
"The biggest thing is can they shut out the Kerry goal threat. In terms of winning the game it is about limiting how much Kerry are going to score because I don’t see them winning a shootout whether they’re scoring from 40 yards or not.”
Kerry, Dublin, Galway, whoever, they’re the obstacle for Derry.
Not Croke Park.
