Ulster to the Four
PETER McGinnity is enjoying this summer and not only because Fermanagh are beating the big boys. McGinnity is more pleased that his native county are one of four Ulster representatives in this weekend’s footballing festival.
“Every year, Ulster football is knocked from the moment the first ball is thrown in ‘til the last kick in the Ulster final,” says the former Erne great turned analyst for BBC television. “It is great to be in a position to defend Ulster football this year, great to be the cream of the crop because every other year, you feel backed into a corner defending Ulster football.”
Ulster football, the bane of Pat Spillane’s life, where they strangle the life from championship games by negative tactics and fear of losing, is suddenly the standard again. Both the holders of the All-Ireland senior and minor titles come from the province, as do the national league champions.
Martin McHugh believes Armagh’s emotional journey to their promised land has worked wonders for the confidence of other counties, a point ex-Armagh manager Brian Canavan agrees with. “What has happened over the last three years is that Ulster teams have seen the success of Armagh and worked to bring themselves to that level. Armagh’s success has probably done a lot to push the standards up in Ulster.”
However, that’s not all. While Armagh’s success might have pushed Tyrone that extra inch, it hardly explains having half the quarter-finalists. McHugh feels you need to scratch deeper below the surface, the seeds of this success were planted and germinated at precisely the right time. When the footballers were young.
“Colleges football has a big part to play. Look at Fermanagh, all their footballers came through St Micheals. Most of the Tyrone footballers have All-Ireland vocationals medals. Schools football is taken much more seriously than down south,” McHugh contends.
“When a child is 14 or 15, that is when they pick up the good habits as a footballer they will carry through their career. They recognised that in Kerry for years and in Ulster over the past 20 years, kids are learning those good habits in the colleges working with people like Dom Corrigan, Pascal Canavan and Pete McGrath.
“The reason Fermanagh beat Meath and Mayo was simply because they were better prepared,” the ex-Cavan manager continues. “Preparation is something that is bred from schools level. Some school teams in Ulster would have the same level of preparation as county senior teams, right down to dietary plans. Good habits go a long way in football.”
McGinnity, who has done trojan work with Micheals in Enniskillen, accepts the province might now be seeing the fruits of that labour. “The rivalry at college level carries through to Sigerson, so young footballers in Ulster are playing very competitive matches very early in their career. They are used to the intensity of championship.”
Ulster championship games are strange affairs which growing up there, you won’t realise until you go to other provincial games. With Ulster football comes a sense of an insular community, operating on their own rules. Some cruelly termed it a siege mentality and there’s a little of that, but it also offered the most distinctive form of tribal battle in the GAA. Often, to its detriment. Because rivalries are forged so bluntly there, football sometimes became secondary within its confines.
Northern observers always believed Ulster teams would benefit most from a re-formatted championship and, alongside Connacht, they have proven right. “Ulster have benefited more than anyone from the qualifiers,” Canavan affirms. “When you go out against lads you played against in schools level, under-age, known all your life, it becomes a psychological thing. You go out with the negative attitude: we are not going to get beat by this bunch, rather than we are going out to win.”
McHugh agrees: “The perception of the Ulster championship as poor comes from over-use of tactics, even at schools level that exists and most of them are negative tactics based around stopping the other teams from playing. In the back-door system, those tactics aren’t used and that is why Ulster teams have done so well, they can express themselves more and more, show what good footballers they are. If somewhere down the road, they do away with the provincial system altogether, I think you will see Ulster teams getting even stronger.”
If true, Tyrone and Fermanagh’s curtain-raiser will be the eyesore of the weekend.
McGinnity, though, reckons this is just a perception and while the games mightn’t be as open, skill levels remain higher in Ulster than anywhere else. “Okay, they know each other so well, they stifle opposition,” he says, “But Ulster teams work equally as hard when they have the ball and don’t have the ball.
“They tackle back, they defend well. It mightn’t be what the purists want to see, but what do they want to see? Tackling properly is one of the best skills of the game. And the standard of tackling in Ulster is of a much higher standard than in Leinster. If a team is tackling well, it is a sign they are working extremely hard.
The only team outside of Ulster who tackles and works with the intensity of Ulster teams is Galway, whenever their forwards lose the ball they follow back and defend. In fairness, Dublin worked like that this year too but just didn’t have the scoring forwards.”
So, this was a revolution bred in schools, drummed into fertile, young minds, a revolution hastened by Armagh’s success and the ability to tackle well. That’s not all. Sense of identity must be considered. “For years, playing Gaelic in the six counties was wrapped up in the sense of identity. Every Catholic family wanted their child playing Gaelic football, because it was a badge,” McHugh surmises.
Maybe Ulster football was simply always strong. “I believe it was,” McHugh says. “If Kerry were playing in Ulster when they were dominating, they wouldn’t have come out of Ulster every year. I think the last couple of years is proving that. The problem for years was that only one team could come out of Ulster.
Maybe it’s desire. Brian Canavan thinks it might be. “I was at the Meath-Fermanagh game, and Fermanagh just seemed to have more desire and hunger. I never thought that a Meath side wouldn’t be the hungriest team on the football field.
“That reflects what has happened in all these qualifiers between northern and southern teams, northern teams simply have more desire and hunger.”
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