Durcan hoping to steer Donegal into winning position again
Jim McGuinness’ side were trailing eight points to four after 24 minutes when the seas parted just enough for Diarmuid Connolly to work a goal opportunity. Score and, the collective consensus has it, Donegal were done.
The dam was creaking by then. They had already survived one major scare 12 minutes beforehand when Neil McGee managed to get a hand to a James McCarthy square pass that had Bernard Brogan’s name and ‘goal’ written all over it.
“I don’t think he hit it well,” said Durcan of Connolly’s effort. “I just got the body down and got a knee to it and it didn’t fall to one of their players, which was good. Possibly we shouldn’t have been that far behind. We dropped three balls into the goalkeeper’s hands which is a no-no against Dublin because they will punish you from those. We were struggling at the time but, in fairness, Christy (Toye) made a big impact when he came on.”
Press him a bit more and he’ll admit that his intervention came at a crucial stage. As the game changed and the drama gravitated towards the far end, it dawned on him just how vital it could be.
Yet, Durcan’s importance only grew as the game gathered in intensity and Donegal grabbed the initiative. Though part of Dublin’s early dominance had been built on their success in winning Donegal’s kickouts, that began to change. Durcan had long since perfected the art of slicing his clearances with the outside of his boot. A long-time free-taker with Four Masters, his ability with his feet were unquestioned and Donegal eventually began to profit. Not every goalkeeper can orchestrate such flight paths. The manner in which Durcan changes his angles of approach before the kick and the manner in which he slices some of them is a high-risk strategy but it was crucial to Donegal’s win.
“I don’t know exactly what it was, but a lot of the ones at the end of the game (they won) whereas a lot of the ones we lost came at the start of the game in the first 15 minutes. After that the lads worked harder on breaks around the middle. In fairness to Odhran (Mac Niallais), he probably stepped up and won two kick-outs and they made a big difference. That was a young fella coming in and having the guts to stand up and win that ball when we were under pressure and that was brilliant.”
What none of them could have foreseen was the fact that Durcan’s kick-outs would lead directly to so many goal opportunities in that second-half as Dublin neglected to seal up the centre-half back’s channel.
He bows to Stephen Cluxton and his kick-outs stats which he claims are through the roof compared to his own but, whatever the comparison, few other goalkeepers demonstrate as much as those two the importance of a man who can create as well as kill an attack.
“The tee coming in was a huge thing,” says Durcan whose inter-county career began the season before it was introduced in 2005. “The tee has made it a lot more accurate and a lot quicker. Even distance-wise, you can get more distance. It has made a huge difference in football and one for the better in my mind. It is a possession game now and you are making it a 60-40 where it used to be a 50-50.”
