Early intensity is key for Gallagher’s Ernesiders

One of Jim McGuinness’s first tasks when he finally landed the role of Donegal senior manager heading into the Baltic winter of 2010 was to cobble together a backroom team.

Peter McGinley had been his right-hand man for that year’s U21 championship. It was a competition that saw Donegal unexpectedly win Ulster before losing the All-Ireland final against Dublin at Breffni Park. And it was also a competition that announced McGuinness to the wider audience.

McGinley, due to work commitments in the insurance sector, was unable to make the step up with McGuinness. Enter Rory Gallagher.

“I’m living in Killybegs and had only helped Peter out once or twice,” Gallagher said in 2012 of his link up with McGuinness.

“It was very minimal and I only talked to Peter a few times and had done a few training sessions with Kilcar as well. Jim spoke to Peter, who had to step aside, and Martin McHugh, who I believe recommended me as well. So, Jim called me and I decided to go to Letterkenny and meet him.” Gallagher, like McGuinness, studied football as much as he watched it. And he watched it a lot.

When they met in Letterkenny in late December, the talk of football rolled into the next morning.

“I went to Letterkenny to have a talk with Jim for an hour or so and Jim being Jim, it took four or five,” Gallagher said. “It was a great meeting. I could see his passion for Donegal and his passion for this team. It was an attractive proposition to get involved with something that was moving forward.”

Donegal moved forward with frightening momentum; Ulster champions in 2011 before reclaiming the Anglo-Celt on the way to the 2012 All-Ireland title. Gallagher was by McGuinness’s side before being dropped as part of a surprising backroom clear-out in 2013. The year after, Donegal won Ulster again and lost to Kerry in the All-Ireland final. Soon after, McGuinness stepped aside.

Gallagher watched on from Killybegs and on Halloween night, 2014 was confirmed as McGuinness’s successor as senior team manager. Looking back, his tenure with Donegal will be one that leaves him with regrets – losing Ulster finals in 2015 and 2016 before being bombed out of the provincial championship by Tyrone in 2017 at the semi-final stage.

From Belleek, Co Fermanagh, Gallagher took his native county to last year’s Ulster final only to be well beaten by Donegal, 2-18 to 0-12, who eased to victory after first-half goals from Eoghan Ban Gallagher and Ryan McHugh. By now, Declan Bonner was at the Donegal helm.

Although working with limited resources, Gallagher took his team to Letterkenny in February and won 0-13 to 0-10.

However, when the Division 2 trophy was handed out in late March, it was Donegal’s Hugh McFadden and Michael Murphy who were on the Lower Hogan to collect it.

The win in Letterkenny proved a steeliness about Fermanagh, who were 0-5 to 0-1 down at a stage. Gallagher learned as much that afternoon in late February from the inept first half from his team as the rejuvenated second.

“We know that if we stand off them and don’t bring the competitiveness like we didn’t in the first half,” Gallagher said this week.

We started okay but I felt we were too tentative and Donegal had the freedom of the pitch and we rode our luck to be only four or five down at half-time. We have got to be at the level from early on.

Gallagher still spends time keeping an eye on the progress of Killybegs GAA club and has lost little knowledge of his old stomping ground.

He will know, first-hand, that Donegal have improved immeasurably since that day in Letterkenny. It was the last game they featured without Murphy and upon his return they overcame Armagh, Cork and Kildare to set up a final meeting with Meath. That afternoon, Bonner’s team were at sixes and sevens and eight points down in the first half before flicking the switch to win in the end 1-17 to 1-15.

Donegal, as last season and the Division 2 final showed, have developed an offensive edge, although perhaps at a cost to their more traditional defensive qualities. But seeing as McGuinness and Gallagher forged a way of playing to suit the players at their disposal, so too has Bonner with options to burn up front. Perhaps the biggest lift for Donegal is the return of Patrick McBrearty, who suffered an ACL injury in last year’s Ulster final win over Fermanagh when he was in the form of his life.

“The quality of the player is unquestionable,” Bonner said of the 25-year-old. “It was a tough, lonely road. I had no doubt he would come back such is a quality of the man.”

Gallagher, tomorrow at Brewster Park, will be trying to burn down the house that he helped build the foundations of in Donegal. He believes, in Fermanagh, a lot has been learned since last year.

“We need to bring what we feel we are good at,” he said.

We need to bring our hunger and desire which we fell short on in those departments last year.

Back in Division 1 and evicted by Tyrone on the cusp of an All-Ireland semi-final last year, Bonner knows the best way into the All-Ireland series and the Super 8s is through the front door.

“There’s no doubt that the best way to go on is by winning your province and going straight through to the Super 8s,” insisted the Donegal boss.

“That’s what we will be aiming for.

“It’s not going to be easy, and it’s very difficult to go back-to-back in Ulster and we haven’t even looked past the first round on Sunday.

“That’s where all our energy has been geared towards. The first step starts Sunday and the challenge Fermanagh will bring.”