Doherty’s Donegal ‘more focused’
It was only on the morning of the 1992 All-Ireland final that Doherty discovered he’d be playing at wing-back for his first championship start that season, an unfamiliar position for a man whose natural habitat was in the corner.
Martin Shovlin undertook a fitness test with Dr Austin Kennedy on a rugby pitch near to the Finnstown House Hotel in Lucan. All appeared to be going well on a troublesome neck cramp until he stooped for a ball and pain shot through his body.
Back then Doherty was almost a permanent fixture for Donegal, but had only recovered from injury himself and Brian McEniff was unwilling to significantly alter a winning team, until injury forced his hand.
Doherty, who had shared a lift home with his friend Shovlin only three nights’ beforehand from their last training session in Ballybofey, excelled in his untried role as they won the All-Ireland for the one and only time.
That trend has since continued. Doherty was offered the Donegal manager’s position just over 18 months ago, but in a shameful soap-opera that offer was reneged in favour of Charlie Mulgrew and Declan Bonner’s joint-ticket. Rumours whisked through the air as to why the proposal to Doherty had been dropped. The Glencolumbkille native attended the next sitting of the county committee and spoke passionately, maintaining he was not canvassing, but wishing to drag his reputation from the mud. A vote on was taken and he was back in.
“I went to meeting to clear my name,” he said afterwards. “I would’ve walked out the door after doing that.
“I wouldn’t have cared less who got the job. It was the clubs who took over and I didn’t expect to be replacing Declan or Charlie. The delegates decided the clock should be turned back to when I was offered the job.”
In his first season in charge, Donegal were ransacked at home by the unlikeliest of sources. Antrim, without a championship win for six years, sent shockwaves through Ulster. Uninspiring qualifier victories over Carlow and Clare followed. Few believed him at the time, but Doherty yearned for a big draw to ignite his team and make the most of their second chance. Derry and Galway provided those stern tests and Donegal came through both.
The All-Ireland quarter-final ended with a heavy loss to Cork, but some pride had been salvaged from the wreckage of Antrim.
“When I came into the dressing room last year, I knew some of the players reasonably well, but not on a personal level,” Doherty said. “I’m definitely more comfortable with the squad now and I’d know its leaders.
“The one thing I learned is you don’t look beyond your first round. It was very hard for us to focus when people said Antrim would come and put up a fight, but we’d beat them. If you are asking me what progress has been made, I would definitely say there is more focus from us all.”
This year, Donegal haven’t had to wait. Down’s stock is rising. And although Donegal had a chance to join them in winning promotion, which would’ve also constituted a Division Two final against James McCartan’s side, they were humiliated in Letterkenny by Armagh, 2-16 to 0-6, in their last league outing.
“We were very disappointed with the performance,” Doherty said of the capitulation. “It probably turned out to be a blessing in disguise (not having to face Down in a league final). It gave us an extra couple of weeks to get focused. We put in a few tough weeks training for the championship since and now we have our focus back for what it is all about, the summer. The league final was a high profile game for Down and I would say that all the burden of expectation is on them now.”
Meanwhile Doherty has handed Dermot Molloy from Naomh Conaill in Glenties his first championship start in tomorrow’s Ulster championship quarter-final against Down in Ballybofey. Molloy enjoyed a fine U21 championship, where Donegal won the Ulster championship and lost out to Dublin in the All-Ireland final at Parnell Park. Having scored 1-18 in those five games, Molloy comes in at the expense of Colm McFadden at corner-forward.
Rory Kavanagh has returned from travelling and will start in the half-forward line alongside Christy Toye, who is due to play his first competitive game for the county since severing his Achilles in last season’s second round qualifier against Clare.
Donegal last took on Down at the same stage of the Ulster 2006 campaign, when they north-westerners won by a single point, 1-12 to 1-11.
