From a nightmare to a dream for McKinless

After 26 seconds of yesterday’s Ulster Club SFC final you’d have given more than a penny for the thoughts of Gareth McKinless.

The Ballinderry defender had been earmarked, following a switch with skipper Conor Nevin, to mark Glenswilly’s Michael Murphy – Donegal’s All-Ireland winning captain – and just turned and faced the Healy Park turf.

McKinless, like the rest of the country, would’ve seen Murphy slam the first goal in last year’s All-Ireland final at Croke Park against Mayo – a score the Connacht champions never came back from.

This time, Murphy didn’t almost rip the net from the goal frame, but the impact was potentially similar. Glenswilly’s first attack saw their talisman get the ball on the right of goal but his contact as he attempted to pop a point wasn’t the cleanest and the ball sneaked into the top corner of Michael Conlon’s net.

How the 19-year-old McKinless hoped history wasn’t repeating itself. It was a nightmare start for Ballinderry. But he kept Murphy to just three more points, one of which came from a free.

“To tell you the truth, I dreamt it on Tuesday night,” McKinless said of a dream that was more of a nightmare with regard to Murphy grabbing a first minute goal.

“I woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. Then today, it came true. I was just looking up at Michael Murphy.

“Sometimes marking a man can go either way and he’s a top class player. You saw one of his points there – it was unbelievable. But it’s not about the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog. I said that to him after the game.”

McKinless also revealed his father, Ballinderry manager Martin, hadn’t actually told him beforehand that marking Murphy might be one of his briefs.

“Our plans were probably different but he is the kind of player you could play anywhere. He did the job there.”