Ulster Minefield- Fact or Hype?

THE simple answer on the evidence of last year’s competition is a yes every day of the week – and twice on Sunday. Of 10 games played, including two replays, the only fixtures to leave the neutral cold were the opener between Cavan and Antrim and the quarter-final when Armagh evicted the Breffni side into the qualifiers.

The rest of the championship was glorious. Some snapshots: Barry Owens’s punched winning goal against Derry just months after heart surgery, Ronan Clarke’s masterclass against Down or Fermanagh’s resurrection from eight points down in the final.

Seemingly routine ties like Derry and Donegal in Ballybofey and Monaghan’s clash with Fermanagh in Enniskillen morphed into captivating, rip-roaring afternoons and then there was the “piece de resistance”. Down and Tyrone’s first meeting, in Omagh, wasn’t bad in itself. Little did we know at the time that it was merely an entrée to what would follow in Newry, namely 80 minutes of rollicking, white-knuckle football. Attendances, not surprisingly, rose by 10% even when the two replays are deducted from the figures and, lest we forget, Tyrone picked themselves up off the canvas to deliver a knockout of their own in September.

Matching all that, in any of the provinces, will be a big ask this or any other year but Ulster is still the most likely of the four to do just that.

“It was two years ago since we played in the Ulster final,” says Monaghan’s Vinny Corey.

“You would be thinking at the time that you are bound to make the extra step the year after but we were dumped out in the first round. As the years go on it just gets tougher and tougher. The standard keeps going up. I mean, look who we have in the first round. Derry. That’s some game to start your championship with.”

Those are far from empty words. The biggest margin of victory in any of the games last summer was six points and that was only after a replay. There were less than four points between teams in eight. Claustrophobic or what? If there is a criticism of Ulster it is the familiarity of the names being etched on the trophy for the past decade. On the few occasions it hasn’t been Armagh, Tyrone have picked up the baton to claim the Anglo-Celt Cup.

Many have come close to changing that, Fermanagh and Monaghan being just two of the latest, but can a competition with such an exclusive winner’s enclosure really be held head and shoulders above its peers?

“Every team is trying to raise the bar up to where Tyrone and Armagh are at,” says Cavan’s Ronan Flanagan. “Monaghan are a great example. They have had two or three great years. Donegal and Derry have done well too. Maybe it is time for other counties to step up.”

Like its Munster hurling equivalent, the Ulster football championship stands as the chief bulwark to an open draw but praise for it can hardly be much consolation to those counties cracking their heads on the glass ceiling so long. Few could argue that counties like Monaghan, Donegal and Derry could all have tasted provincial success had they found themselves playing in one of the corresponding three championships in recent years.

“It does take its toll on a squad in terms of injuries,” says Donegal’s Rory Kavanagh. “It stands to reason that the more, tougher games you play the more knocks you will pick up as you go.

“We can’t really complain though because when you do come out of Ulster and go south you are well prepared. It gives you that bit of edge psychologically. We like it the way it is up here.”