IT WAS the draw that the entire football world dreaded. When last week’s round-two All-Ireland football qualifier pairings emerged, the dust had just about settled on the aftermath of May’s unpleasant Derry-Monaghan encounter in the Ulster championship with Monaghan still smarting from the lengthy suspension enforced on top forward Tommy Freeman.
The Derry players suspended as a result of the same match, Fergal Doherty and Brian Mullan, will both be available for selection but Freeman won’t, as his infraction of attempting to head-butt carries a longer suspension.
But all in all and given Monaghan’s strong record in the qualifiers in recent years – including a win over tomorrow’s opponents last year and last week’s gritty elimination after extra time of 2008 Ulster champions Armagh – surely Derry manager Damian Cassidy must have been dismayed when his team’s next opponents were pulled from the hat.
“That was the immediate 10-second feeling,” Cassidy candidly recalls, “but because it was the toughest draw we could have got, that focuses the mind and without that focus you know you’re going to lose.”
There is merit in the argument that teams recovering from championship disappointment need a major challenge in the qualifiers to reignite their season. What doesn’t kill a team makes it stronger.
Monaghan may have put the defeat by Derry behind them after last week’s battle with Armagh but Derry are still rehabilitating after losing their Ulster semi-final to Tyrone. The defeat, comprehensive as it was, wasn’t the principal difficulty but the manner of it, listless and disorganised, was.
“The Tyrone game was very disappointing,” says Cassidy. “There was no correlation between the way we’ve been trying to play in training matches and the way we played. We let ourselves down. That’s why I was so disappointed.”
On taking over at the beginning of the season Cassidy prioritised a change in playing style and the development of more competition for places and while trialling players extensively during the league managed to reach the final, losing to Kerry.
But having done well to see off Monaghan in the Ulster first round, Derry – albeit undermined by injury – left all of their tactical innovation on the line when losing to Tyrone.
“It’s hard to understand why it’s not happening for us in the actual games. The method we’ve been working on has gone well in training but when pressure comes on players go back to type.
“It has improved and we have put in place tactical improvements but execution was poor against Tyrone.”
This week started badly with the emerging news that 2007 All Star forward Paddy Bradley had asked not to be considered for the Monaghan match. Although it was denied on Monday night that Bradley had left the panel, it was obvious that something had arisen at training on Sunday.
A county board source said that the player had “personal issues” but “no animosity with the manager”. Cassidy, however, is angry that stories about problems within the camp perennially surface in the county.
“Each year with Derry, this sort of stuff goes on in the background. My angle is simply: what’s the agenda here? Why does this go on year in, year out? I have a good relationship with Paddy Bradley and haven’t had a cross word with him all year. He was a player needing a bit of time to get something off his chest and all it required was to sit down with management.”
With Bradley back in contention for a place and a number of injury problems clearing Cassidy is happy that he will have more choice than for a while when selecting the team for tomorrow.
“We have the strongest panel available since the league match against Galway.”