WHAT a difference four weeks makes. My last column was published the Sunday before the National League finals where Derry had blazed a trail through Dublin and were roundly commended from all quarters for going at Dessie Farrell’s side. In the game beforehand, Donegal and Armagh had played out what was an exciting game in its […]
By Alan Rodgers IT was the summer of 1994. Tyrone hadn’t won an Ulster Championship match for five years while Donegal were emerging from a golden era of success which had seen them win their first ever All-Ireland title. Breffni Park was the venue for a clash that saw one era begin while another ended. […]
WE expected last week’s games would spring the championship into action, but I don’t think any of us expected what was about to unfold at Celtic Park on Saturday evening. I am going to look at this game in two parts and treat them as two separate sections because in my eyes, that’s how the game […]
By Barry O’Donnell THE long kick-out strategy which reaped rich dividends for Donegal last time out, is a tactic which Tyrone need to have an answer to, Niall Morgan has warned. Derry net minder Odhran Lynch fell victim to the booming deliveries from his counterpart at the other end of the field Shaun Patton last […]
BY DÁIRE BONNAR DONEGAL star Oisin Gallen believes the shortened season makes it physically challenging to stay at 100 per cent week-on-week. With the split season now, the Ulster Championship typically starts a month earlier and is usually wrapped up before it would have even started previously. It puts an extra strain on players with games […]
Ulster SFC quarter-final Donegal 4-11 Derry 0-17 By Michael McMullan DONEGAL bagged four goals to dump champions Derry out of the race to win a third successive Ulster title on Saturday night at Celtic Park. Advertisement On a night when the home side were wasteful and unable to engineer a clear goal chance, Donegal’s four […]
Ulster SFC Cavan v Tyrone Sunday, Breffni Park, 4pm By Niall Gartland IN recent years Tyrone have been akin to a box of chocolates, so there’s an exciting sense of unpredictability about Sunday’s Ulster Senior Championship quarter-final clash against Cavan. The Red Hands were nothing if not unpredictable during the league; swashbuckling one weekend, dead […]
By Barry O’Donnell RAYMOND Galligan believes that Tyrone’s loss is very definitely Cavan’s gain with Stephen O’Neill now a vital cog in his backroom team. In recent times there has been clear evidence that the Breffni County have a few rough diamonds in attack who maybe required some pearls of wisdom from a footballing sage to brush […]
FR Liam McClarey, our team chaplain when we won the All-Ireland in 1993, had an audience with his Holiness the Pope in Rome last Thursday. Liam played on the Glack team that won the Derry Junior Championship in 1981. The competition is called the Joe Brolly Cup (after my late grandfather) and as my father […]
THE Ulster Championship last weekend felt like an extension of the National League – poor crowds, soft pitches and windy, wintery conditions. It was a far cry from the summer sod, when the sun is shining, the straw hats are out and the football is fast and intense. Down’s game with Antrim on Saturday was […]
