Derry more than a two-man show
Their steady progress, reflected in an All-Ireland semi-final appearance against Kerry 12 months ago, has won them admiration from a variety of sources and so far they haven’t disappointed.
However, Moran agrees that tomorrow’s qualifier clash with Laois in Croke Park represents their biggest challenge of the campaign.
Moran is part of a select group who have managed three intercounty teams, with Mick O’Dwyer and John O’Mahony sharing the distinction of winning provincial titles with all three. In Moran’s case, he was coach to the All-Ireland-winning Derry team of 1993 and was subsequently involved with Sligo and Donegal before returning to his native county. Interestingly, he points out that the only time he came head-to-head with O’Dwyer was when Derry beat Kerry in the quarter-final of the Centenary Cup (in 1984) - and he was player-manager.
“This is my third year, but in actual fact it’s only our second,’’ he explains. “The first year we just went in and looked at everything. We had a lot of thinking to do and we made a lot of changes - maybe eighteen or twenty from the first year. We have a lot of young players like Mark Lynch, Eoin Bradley, Padraic Murphy and my own son Conleth. It’s just taking shape.”
They opened their Ulster campaign with a six-point win over Monaghan but Armagh dismissed them in their next outing. It was a particularly disappointing game to lose, says Moran, for the number of wides registered.
Two wins have brought them back to Croke Park, the first away to Down - “always a tricky game in The Marshes” - and the next against Limerick in Castlebar.
“Like ourselves, Down are an emerging team and Paddy O’Rourke has done three years of good work with them. We were in control until they got two late goals. The Limerick game was hard for us because we played them last year and probably caught them on the hop after they had lost the Munster final replay to Kerry. To be fair to Liam Kearns, he was very magnanimous after the match. It was another good result for us, especially when we did not have Enda Muldoon or Fergal O’Doherty and we lost Paul McFlynn.”
Taking on Laois means that his team will have to move up to another level, Moran says. He believes that they should have won the Leinster final, his respect for O’Dwyer’s team being reinforced by viewing their games with Offaly and Kildare on video. This game will show “how far” Derry have come since last year.
He still has regrets about their All-Ireland semi-final defeat by Kerry after they had done very well to bounce back from an eleven points hammering at the hands of Tyrone in their Ulster opener.
“We had a good enough first half, but we just let it slip for about five minutes before half-time and ten minutes at the start of the second half. There is a lot of fight in this team, there’s ‘heart’ there!”
And it would be accepted that there is a lot of talent in the team, best exemplified by the likes of Muldoon and Paddy Bradley, a potent attacking force.
“Paddy is a magnificent captain and he has been leading by example. To me - and I am not being biased - I think he is the best forward in Ireland at the moment. He is certainly a big player in our team. But he still has to get the ball and other fellows are making runs off the ball too.”
The vastly experienced Sean Marty Lockhart, a veteran of several international rules series, is the oldest player in the team, heading towards his 28th birthday. Muldoon is 26 and the others are in their early twenties or younger. The Derry manager is satisfied that they have “definitely” got a great mix in the team - something which will be put to the test by Laois
“Their work-rate is unreal. We will have to compete with them in that regard. If we don’t, we will be in trouble,’’ he added. But he has sufficient faith in his young team to know that they won’t easily be beaten. Whatever way the match is going - we will still be there at the end of it!”
Meanwhile goalkeeper Barry Gillis believes that the Derry team Laois will face in tomorrow’s Round Four qualifier will be a far superior outfit to the one that reached an All-Ireland semi-final last summer.
“This team is without a doubt a better team than last year,” said the 25-year old yesterday. “Young fellas like Eoin Bradley, Mark Lynch and Paul Murphy have all come in to add competition and the rest of us will all have benefited from the run last year. Last year has given everyone a real taste for it. The main focus now has to be going one step further.”
With a raft of injuries to key players threatening to disrupt their season as far back as February, the fresh blood has had plenty of opportunities to be transfused into the team. Maybe now, Gillis hopes, people will stop calling Derry the ‘Bradley and Muldoon Show’.
“What it boils down to is that we have a good enough squad of 30 players. Even during the league we were missing big name players at one stage or another and it never affected us. Basically, there’s no way we would have gotten this far two years in a row if we were a two-man team.”
Though the predatory instincts of their two star forwards have undoubtedly spearheaded the resurrection of the county’s fortunes, it’s a collective self-belief that has provided the basic ingredients.
“What last year has given us more than anything is belief. It was a bit of a shock when we did so well, but not to any of us players. After we took that bad beating against Tyrone everyone had written us off but one look through this Derry team and people can see that we have a fair few household names there. We’re always going to cause other teams problems.
“A lot of it last year was down to Mickey Moran and John Morrison and our more senior players. We’re a very young side and a lot of our senior lads had never taken a beating like the one against Tyrone before.
“They talked to the younger lads, myself included, and it was from them that the belief and encouragement came from. We’ve tried to develop that through this summer as well.”
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