Errigal Ciaran preparing for All-Ireland showdown

by Francis Mooney

ERRIGAL Ciaran’s date with destiny takes them to O’Moore Park in Portlaoise on Sunday for the biggest game in the lives of a squad of footballers who have already done their club proud.

They face Dr Crokes in the All-Ireland Club Football Championship semi-final, seeking to create history by qualifying for a first ever Croke Park decider.

The Ulster champions go in as underdogs against a seasoned team from Killarney that is stacked with Kerry stars.

But the Tyrone standard-bearers will back themselves to rise to the occasion and take another huge step for club and county.

After battling their way to triumph in a typically tough Red Hand championship, Errigal threw themselves into the Ulster series with relish, scoring victories over St Eunan’s of Donegal, Cargin of Antrim, Armagh champions Clann Eireann and Down giants Kilcoo to win the Ulster title for the third time in their history.

Now they have the opportunity to go further than even their own club legends by qualifying for the All-Ireland final.

But they’re facing into the unknown against a Dr Crokes side that have been difficult to analyse due to difficulties in gaining information and compiling a dossier of strengths and weaknesses which would inform their preparations.

A network of well-informed contacts throughout Ulster helped manager Enda McGinley and his coaching team obtain all the intelligence he needed on St Eunan’s, a Cargin team that contained his two brothers-in-law, Clann Eireann and Kilcoo en route to a first provincial title in 22 years, but infiltration of the southern province hasn’t been so easy.

“I've been very lucky this last while, there's plenty of people in Errigal who have plenty of knowledge on various teams in Ulster and that's been a massive help to me all along in terms of the Ulster run,” said McGinley.

“Crokes pose a different challenge geographically, they're a long way away, we're struggling for any inside lines.”

McGinley and his coaches have been gathering as much information about the Munster champions as possible, but building a deep understanding of the individual threats they carry is impossible.

“One of the things you notice, the Munster teams and Kerry teams will know Dr Crokes much, much better than we do,” said McGinley.

“The video tapes will be analysed, we'll try to get a few closer sources to try and add a bit of colour into what we're seeing on the video.

“But at the same time, you still haven't seen your players up against them. Certain people you might think match up on paper but then when you get into play them, suddenly they don't match up and vice-versa.

“You know that experience coming up through underage ranks within your own county, a lot of those wee match-ups, and the players all know each other, you know who matches up well and who doesn't match up well.

“It is trying to get an inside line, trying to move away from just the obvious names and see the other names that make them tick. That's the very difficult thing. But isn't it a really lovely challenge and privilege to have.”

Kerry attackers Micheal Burns and Tony Brosnan, as well as attacking half back Gavin White, are the most straightforward threads of the puzzle, but it’s the supporting cast that could cause even greater problems for Errigal on the day.

“You'll always know the named players, the star names, they're easy enough to identify because their names are up in lights,” McGinley added.

“But it's the second level within a club side that particularly at this level, they're fantastic footballers, and it's those players that can quite often dictate and control a game. Their opponents within Kerry and Munster, because they know them so well, those players will be well-identified and will be shut down.

“So when you're looking at videos, two, three, four videos of games, those players may not be prominent because the opposition have put so much effort to shut them down or maybe the opposition do certain things on kick outs and know not to do a different thing because that would be Crokes' Plan A, and if they get to play their Plan A, they could hammer you out the gate.

“Most teams will try to force them to Plan B. When we look at videos, they're winning games by their Plan B so it's very easy for us to focus on stopping their Plan B, and potentially unleash their Plan A on us.”

The opening stages of this weekend’s tie at Portlaoise could be somewhat chaotic as Crokes and Errigal size each other up with some quick-thinking on the hoof and respond accordingly with the tactical adjustments that may give one or the other of them an edge.

“No matter what you learn, of either the people surrounding Kerry football or from the videos, the first ten-15 minutes of this game is going to be such a learning curve, to try to identify what you've got right, what you've got wrong, and trying to make the switches and changes to try and put yourself in the best position to push on and make something of it.”

The Errigal boss believes his side can use a character-building Ulster final triumph as a platform for this latest challenge as they step into the All-Ireland series.

“We had to back ourselves and we had to be brave. But there was just a really special feeling all week. There was a very special feeling.

“There was a hunger and a pride in that group of players from the several years of work that they've put in and the journey that they've been on this year.

“It takes a huge character and composure and quality to win games continually going down the stretch.

“You can say we're lucky. I would argue that when it's happened so often, it's not happening by chance.”

And if Crokes pay particular attention to blunting the effectiveness of Darragh and Ruairi Canavan, Errigal Ciaran will be hoping other players can take advantage of the openings that appear.

“Well that's exactly what you want your opposition to be thinking of is Darragh and Ruairi Canavan, because if they do that, they miss a hell of a lot of other high quality players that we've got.

“And the two boys are smart enough and shrewd enough at how to work space that others then come in.

“And the two boys are selfless enough that if it's not them getting their chances, they'll make sure others get good chances too.

“To us, that's always to our benefit. And then other days, those boys will come up with the goods too.

“What an opportunity. What a privileged place to be in.”