Donegal look to avenge past disappointments

Armagh and Donegal has developed into one of the great rivalries of the Ulster senior football championship.

Brendan O’Brien traces its history

DECLAN BONNER traces it all back to 1998 and a long-forgotten league game in Lurgan on a day when the only thing dirtier than the weather was the game itself.

He was manager of Donegal when what appeared to be a routine assignment ended with John Bannon sending four players off and another leaving the ground in an ambulance after breaking a leg.

Both teams were complicit in the chaos but Bonner left for home with a new-found respect for their hosts.

“We always knew Armagh were a tough nut to crack but there was any number of tough tackles went in that day,” Bonner recalls. “We ended up winning the match by a point but we knew from then on that Armagh were a side to be reckoned with.”

Little did he know that they would play jailor to his county’s ambitions for a decade to come.

Despite Ulster’s successes on the national stage in the early to mid-’90s, there was a vacancy in the province for one dominant force as the new millennium approached and both Donegal and Armagh had the kind of CVs to suggest they were the ones to fill it.

With men like Jarlath Burns, Kieran McGeeney, Paul McGrane and Benny Tierney pulling the strings, Armagh had taken Dublin to a replay in the spring of ‘99, but that wouldn’t have impressed many in Donegal.

Bonner and company had reached the own league semi the year before and would have taken the Ulster title a few months later only for Joe Brolly’s last-minute goal for Derry in the provincial decider.

A handful of the heroes from 1992, Tony Boyle and Noel Hegarty among them, were still punching in and promising youngsters like Brendan Devenney, Adrian Sweeney, Michael Hegarty and Damien Diver had been taken on to spread the work load.

In the end, they made their pitches for the role of top dog in an Ulster first round clash in Ballybofey, 18 months after the battle in Lurgan. “We got off to a great start, getting two goals and a point on the board before they had even scored,” says Bonner.

By the closing scene, the landscape had changed. Diarmuid Marsden came off the bench to turn the game in Armagh’s favour and a late point from Michael Hegarty salvaged a draw for the hosts.

The replay in Clones started badly with Donegal gifting a soft goal from which, to this day, they never recovered. Armagh? They never looked back.

“That was the start of the Armagh roadshow,” says Bonner. “They went on to win Ulster for the first time in nearly 17 years and play in Croke Park and they grew from there after Joe Kernan took over from Brian McAlinden and Brian Canavan.”

Donegal have suffered under their yoke every year since, losing three Ulster finals and an All-Ireland semi-final to their tormentors. The general consensus is that Donegal’s problems have been largely self-inflicted.

No-one doubts their abilities, but stories of disciplinary problems have filtered out of the northwest year on year. That flow seems to have been stemmed by Brian McIver who has addressed other glaring issues like their lack of physique and slavish devotion to playing the short ball game.

“There have been lots of reasons bandied about but it is down to the players, basically,” says Bonner. “You have to hand it to Armagh, they have had a great squad come together at the one time. They have been totally committed and focused on what they’ve had to do. Maybe they have been that bit more focused than the Donegal lads.” With Armagh’s armaments lightened by the absence of key players due to injuries and retirements, the stars finally seem to be moving into an alignment that could bring Donegal’s miserable run in this fixture to an end.