Pace of game in top divisions so different

ALLIANZ FL DIVISION 1 SEMI-FINAL:

“We had a week and-a-half break I think,” he said. “Then we were back into it doing the gym, then one night a week up in Owenbeg for about a month and-a-half and then straight into training. It wasn’t much of a break but we knew we were going to come up against the likes of Dublin and those teams would embarrass you if you weren’t as fit as them.”

McFaul admitted finding a massive difference between the pace of games in the top two divisions after promotion from the second tier.

“I think in the away games, especially down in Cork, we got hit badly by the pace of the game. In the Tyrone game we didn’t play as well as we could have, but it was the opening game and we were getting used to Division 1 football.”

Derry will have to overcome a recent psychological blow if they are to see a spring reward for last summer’s gym sessions, after being well beaten last weekend by a Mayo side Cillian O’Connor says took a while to find their rhythm in the league.

“We were a bit rusty, made some basic mistakes and our fitness probably wasn’t as good as it should have been for the first few games,” he said. “Our consistency is better now and we have cut out some of the basic errors. I think we are improving.”

Psychological barriers have been put forward as reasons for Mayo’s Croke Park final losses in the last two decades, but O’Connor believes headquarters actually offers them plenty of advantages.

“Obviously some of the final losses there in the last couple of years have been highlighted but we’ve won an awful lot of games in Croke Park as well. The way we play, especially the half-forward and half-back lines, it suits an awful lot of our players, the open spaces and the high tempo that the boys play at.”

And O’Connor says he’s fully over the shoulder injury that dogged him last year.

“At the start, when I came back from the first dislocation, at training you’re a little bit worried and it takes a while to get rid of that apprehension. But we worked on landing, rolling, twisting, tackling and then session by session, thankfully, that apprehension has gone away.”