By Joe Brolly
THE GREAT Enda Muldoon has returned to the Derry fold and showed that Ballinderry's loss is Derry's gain.
Enda poses a positional and tactical dilemma for Damien Cassidy. Do you play him as a third midfielder, instructing him to roam between the fifties, setting up the play, kicking the odd long range point and taking the frees quickly and accurately? If so, which forwards forage into the defence, playing the workhorse roles? And how do you position your remaining forwards?
The biggest puzzle when playing a screen defence, is how to achieve defensive meanness whilst at the same time not unbalancing the attack. The second possibility for Enda is simply to play him at midfield. Anyone who watched Ballinderry over the last year will have marvelled at his all-round game from number 9, and his last performance in the drawn Ulster final against Cross was simply stupendous.
Damien elected to play him a midfield, and as has been his habit, he got it right. Enda was impeccable, playing hard, and nonchalantly spraying beautiful passes to all and sundry. Meanwhile, Fergal Doherty ate Ciaran Whelan for breakfast, giving an awesome performance of tackling, hard hitting and running.
The thing about the team is this: they are no longer an ad hoc collection of individuals, going out to give it a lash. Now, they are playing to a clearly defined system, and after only ten weeks it is seriously taking shape. It is apparent that they are concentrating on conditioned games at training, and that each man's role has been fully thought out and explained. The central themes have been recurrent in each game, and it has been possible to see the refinements and improvements from game to game. Anyone who was at the Kerry game and the Dublin match will know exactly what I mean.
Players crave a system. They want to know precisely what their role is. The more detail the better. There is a long way to go, but the foundations for a thoroughly logical and effective game plan are already in place, and Damien will be relentless. The defensive system is miserly. For the first time in a decade, we are not leaking cheap scores. Interestingly, we have the lowest scores against in the entire league, and the Dubs' late consolation goal is the first against us all year. The breaking ball work has been meticulously worked on, and in each game to date, including the Kerry encounter, we have won that sector decisively. Finally, and most pleasingly, the forward plan is working beautifully, by that I mean the way we counter-attack out of the siege defence.
With any team, a clever, tactically astute general can maximise its potential by introducing a modern game plan. The best recent examples are Malachy O'Rourke's excellent work with Fermanagh, and now Kieran McGeeney's similarly impressive efforts with Kildare. However, at some point, you will hit the ceiling, and that ceiling is of course the natural talents of the players at your disposal. So for example if Malachy had a Colm Cooper and Kieran Donaghy to complement his work, he would be on the pig's back. Without players of that ilk, the team is reduced to playing effective but terribly ugly football.
And here is where Derry have an advantage. The players at Damien's disposal are excellent. A small example: against Kerry we had two sideline frees inside the fifty. James Kielt kicked both over the bar, one from the left, one from the right. Against the Dubs, we again had two sidelines inside the fifty. James wasn't playing, so this time Eoin Bradley drove them both over, from the left touchline, off the outside of his left.
The Dubs were simply mesmerised, Derry's systems of play complemented by the excellence of our individuals. In spite of their workaholism, the Dubs were left looking decidedly second rate, which represents a complete turnaround from the teams' recent clashes. Mickey Harte's success lies in combining the science of strategy and tactics, with the artistry of his handful of great players. The early signs are that Damien Cassidy understands how to achieve this. If he does, the ceiling is very high indeed. Not just in terms of winning, but in terms of entertainment. Because as Danny Blanchflower pointed out:
"The great fallacy is that the game is first and last about winning. It is nothing of the kind. The game is about glory, it is about doing things in style and with a flourish, about going out and beating the other lot, not waiting for them to die of boredom."
The way things are shaping up, Derry supporters are in no fear of dying of boredom.
BREAKOUT...
Danny Blanchflower, then manager of Chelsea, was asked once, before a cup match whether his team were going to win. "I don't know" he replied, "that's why we're playing the game."
Danny, a great footballer and thinker, put punditry into its proper perspective.
Crossmaglen were universally tipped before their final. Many people simply couldn't see how they might be beaten. At the start of the year, they put out half a team against a full strength Crokes side in a challenge match, and still disposed of them easily.
This time, they were always on the back foot, which isn't the place to be for a team so heavily weighted towards defending. They lost for a number of reasons. The early goal started the rot, infusing Crokes with true confidence. Suddenly they believed. In fairness to Cross, nothing much could have been done about it. It was a really good team goal, the forwards sprinting at different angles, defenders having to turn and run towards their goals, the final killer hand pass, the ruthless finish.
After that, an uncommon anxiety crept into Crossmaglen's play, characterised by a plethora of rushed, poorly judged shots either side of half time. Three times Michael McNamee snatched at shots from the wrong areas, and three times the ball went wide. Johnny Murtagh added another three, and Jamie Clarke two of his own. That alone was eight wasted possessions, when Cross had worked promising openings.
This unusual lack of composure was the main reason for their demise. Crokes sensed it, and thrived on the opposition's anxiety. The final nail in the coffin was Paddy Carr's crucial decision to instruct Paul Griffin to man-mark John McEntee wherever he went. Paul is not a great player but he is very very fast, something that John isn't. With their great playmaker tied up, their options inside were suddenly drastically reduced.
Only Oisin looked the part, which was nearly, but not quite enough. The goal chance at the start of the second half was all his own work, but for once he made the wrong decision, electing to shoot instead of handpassing across the square to the unmarked Clarke. On all known evidence, I think it fair to say that a goal at this stage would have turned the game on its head, and a flawless, unsurpassable record would have been maintained. Games create their own chemistry.
