‘Matured’ Donegal star McHugh ready to size up to Rebels

The first thing you notice on meeting Mark McHugh is his build and size.

Modern football may have embraced the maxim that bigger is better but the man from Kilcar, so vital to his county’s style and success, is no more than average in height and of a similar mass in his civvies.

In that, he is an anachronism, and all the more so this Sunday when Gaelic football’s two behemoths face each other in the first of this year’s All-Ireland semi-finals at an expectant Croke Park.

The last time these two featured at HQ — for their respective quarter-finals — Cork lined up with 14 men standing at six-foot or over while Donegal had a more modest contingent of 11.

McHugh was one of the other four, all of whom are listed at 5’ 11’.

That seems generous but maybe it has something to do with his colleagues. At the team’s pre-match press night in Ballybofey last week, McHugh was dwarfed by colleagues such as Peter McGee, younger brother of Neil and Eamon, who comes in at 6’ 5’ and 16 stone.

Whatever McHugh’s height, there is no underestimating the weight of his importance. He is a will-o’-the-wisp, a firefighter and a firestarter, a vagrant who bears no heed to the number on his back or the lines on the grass and he performs the role with serious success.

As Paddy Heaney put it in his column in these pages last May, he is a defender who doesn’t mark and a forward who doesn’t play in the attack and if his performances kick through to September, he will surely end the year as the game’s MVP.

“I don’t think it is any different to what I was doing last year,” he said. “Maybe I have just matured a bit as a footballer. I have done a wee bit of work in the gym — not that you would know it — but maybe I have just got used to the role a wee bit better. Every half-forward in the country is doing it now. You have Paul Galvin for Kerry, (Kevin) McLoughlin there for Mayo, Paul Flynn with Dublin — they are all doing it so it is all about being able to go out on the field and perform to the best of your ability on the day.”

McHugh is a composite footballer but, of all his skills, it is that ability to find clarity of purpose amid the mayhem of bodies, collisions and motions on a pitch that makes him stand out.

For that, he has his old man to thank. Growing up in the McHugh house meant one thing and one thing only: football. How could it have been otherwise with a father who won an All-Ireland medal and went on to build a career as an analyst in broadcast and print? When Mark McHugh wasn’t playing football he was listening to his dad talk about it. Video after endless video slipped into the VCR. Even now, his dad will ring him before every game with a heads-up about how it is likely to unfold.

“I am probably lucky enough to have grown up in the house I did grow up in. Football was always talked about and you take that onto the pitch. With the good football brain he has he has taught me all about how to read a game as best as you can.”

All of the McHugh boys were faced with the same growing up. ‘Will he be as good as their father?’ It probably helped that Mark wasn’t a three or four-point per game forward and he has long emerged out of the shadows.

That’s mostly thanks to the success this Donegal team has enjoyed. It may not be everyone’s idea of attractive football but McHugh could hardly be happier.

“I love playing for Donegal and I don’t know how you couldn’t enjoy it. You are playing football in August where you want to be. You are out on the streets meeting people and all they want to do is talk about Donegal football. “It’s a great lift and we are delighted to be in that position.”