It’s now or never for Gildea
There have been near misses in the past. Two Ray Cosgrove goals denied Donegal a place in the semis last summer. In ’98, it was a late, late Joe Brolly show that denied him an Ulster medal and a place in the semis. After last year, and the fallout from the drawn game, Gildea thought the day would never come. With football in the county in disarray, and his knees in a decrepit state, he announced his retirement.
And he stayed retired well into the spring. Although Donegal finally secured the services of a manager in January, Gildea felt his body had had enough. Like other fine servants from west Donegal, Rambo Gavigan, Anthony Molloy, Noel Hegarty, the latter part of his career has been troubled by knee injuries. Some speculate that the sandy pitches in that part of the country are to blame. Whatever the reason, it doesn’t make it any easier for Gildea.
“They are still very sore,” says the on-field general of this Donegal team. “To be honest, they are in bits after every game. I did a lot of running in both Galway games and that really took its toll. Whenever this year ends, be it on Sunday, be it in a month’s time or be it with an All-Ireland medal, I think that is it for me. There comes a time to stop, every dog has its day, and I think I have had mine.”
Gildea has been determined to make his final year last as long as possible. As he only came back in April, he was left behind the rest of the team in training, despite their own slow start. So, for most of the summer, he has been doing a separate training regime.
“Yeah, I have had to do a lot of work on my own, especially in the pool. I am doing a lot of extra work in the middle of the park and traditionally, I wouldn’t have been the fittest man in the world, so I had to be more work. I found it hard, but it’s paying off for me now. And here I am sitting talking about an All-Ireland semi-final, somewhere I never thought I would be. From my own point of view, obviously delighted, waited a long time for this. From the team point of view, apart from myself, Mark Crossan, Tony Blake, this is a very young squad and getting this far so early in their careers will do them the world of good. This time last year, I was retired, didn’t play any football till April and now I am 70-odd minutes away from an All-Ireland final. Initially, it was bit of a shock but if you looked at the thing logically, there was no reason not to expect Donegal to make a dent in this year’s championship.”
And so Gildea talks us through a year that while the football might have left a little to be desired, the belief never wavered.
“The league was messy. We had three trainers, we didn’t get a manager till the first week in January, so to expect a good league run from us was probably a bit much. We always knew we had the footballers. We didn’t go on the run we had last year and turn into a bad team overnight, so there was always a belief there that we were good enough. But it was always a matter of getting it right.
“There were a few changes. Anthony Harkin came in, we had a few serious team meetings. That helped, decent enough draws before meeting Galway. Anthony has brought a bit of structure and organisation and a bit of discipline to training. But trainers can only do so much. A lot of it is down to the players themselves. If the players don’t put it into, it doesn’t matter who is training us. Because of what happened at the start of the year, with the questions over management, maybe that was being used as a cop-out, that had to be stopped. After the Fermanagh game, supporters were devastated and we had to show a wee bit of pride, a wee bit of spirit just for the supporters’s sake more than anything. And that had a snowball effect, we have gradually being getting better and better. But, they always would. Players like Adrian Sweeney, Brendan Devanney, Michael Hegarty, they don’t just become bad footballers.”
Gildea’s early season form suffered from his rest, too. Last year, he mastered the sweeping role between midfield and the half-backs that the top three Ulster sides use. Against Dublin the first day, the way Gildea mopped up every break was the platform on which Donegal almost derailed the Tommy Lyons bandwagon. This year, like the rest of his team, Gildea seems to be growing in confidence with each game.
“It is a role we worked on last year, to give extra cover to the defence, and it worked well. And a lot of sides are doing it now, Tyrone are doing it, Armagh do it with Tony McEntee. Ulster sides are dropping men behind the ball and then, breaking quick. For Donegal, I do it but at this stage, everybody and their dog knows what’s going to happen. So, whether it will be effective on Sunday remains to be seen.”
Donegal is positively vibrating to the possibilities of a scarcely-believed All-Ireland final. Every day, as Gildea drives up the county to his Glenties home from his work in Ballyshannon, he sees it. The spirit of ’92 has returned.
“Donegal haven’t had this buzz for a long time. Last year, the county went from a big high to a massive low when everything went wrong in the winter, hassles over county chairmen and things like that. So, it has been a real roller-coaster ride for both team and county.”
With Sunday comes the All-Ireland champions. Gildea knows a few of the Armagh lads and knows how tough it will be to release their grip on the Cup, but the focus has changed in Donegal. It is no longer about redemption.
“The whole championship so far has been about Fermanagh, laying that ghost to rest and prove to people we weren’t the side that played against Fermanagh. Until the Galway game was about Fermanagh. The Galway game, then, was about Dublin last year. Laying those ghosts. We let ourselves down, we let the whole county down last year against Dublin, and I knew from the attitude in the dressing-room after drawing with Galway, that we would beat them. Everyone was down the road, we were back training the following night. Everyone knew exactly where we want to go.
“It has gone well for us, not so much individually that anyone is playing particularly well on the Donegal side, I think it is more of a collective thing. Big collective effort, work wild hard as a team and that is how we get through games. If we can keep the same work ethic up, if we have a few players that play to their potential, then we are going to be there or thereabouts.”
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