Longford was not the ideal draw, and with the GAA somehow shoe-horning in a crazy rule about the team that played last year's first round away from home allowed home advantage the following year, the draw has been made all the more difficult. Out of Derry's last ten qualifier games, two of them have been played at home, so if the GAA are trying to create a fair system it's not working. And in any case they should focus their concentrations on the blatantly obvious inequalities in the All-Ireland Football Championship as a whole (i.e. the unfair provincial structures) instead of worrying about petty little details like which first round qualifier team gets home advantage.Anyway, the respective form of the two sides has resulted in Derry being made underdogs for this tie (as big as 6/4 in places), and the general consensus is that the Oak Leafers will have their work cut out. Most of this is based on the poor showing in Ballybofey, whilst Longford's ascension from Leinster's lower tier to the middle tier and promotion to Division 2 of the NFL, marks them out as a team on the rise. Home advantage will help them, having beaten not only Derry, but also Mayo and Down in Championship football at Pearse Park in recent years (and they ran Kerry close in 2009).
But is it an automatic given that Longford will beat Derry? The Leinster outfit certainly haven't become world-beaters over night. They struggled past a passive Laois outfit in their opening championship game and were beaten after a replay by Wexford in a LSFC quarter-final. So, it's fair to say that their current level is somewhere around that of Laois, Wexford, Louth and Westmeath. Ordinarily you would imagine Derry not to be outmatched in that sort of company, but this year's results have suggested otherwise and that is where the problems lie for John Brennan and his squad as they travel south this weekend. Perhaps that is something of an advantage. Six years ago Derry were expected to comfortably deal with the O'Farrell men in a Round 3 qualifier at Pearse Park and came out with a one-point defeat. The current Derry side will not be taking anything for granted this time around. Not just because they know what to expect from this particular fixture, but also because teams of this ilk have caused us serious problems in 2012.
John Brennan has a job on his hands to reverse the fortunes. The main criticism levelled at his team in the aftermath of Ballybofey was they they did not show enough fight, spirit and hunger. The second half of that game provided foundation to those claims and that will be Brennan's first concern. We all know that the Oak Leaf squad contains matchwinners, but if the fifteen men on the field don't reach the required intensity levels, or at least match the workrate of their opposition, the ability of the likes of Paddy Bradley, Mark Lynch and Eoin Bradley to win their side football matches is diluted significantly. If the Oak Leaf squad have done nothing on the training ground this week bar working on tackling high up the pitch and getting numbers back and forward in tandem to support those in possession, then it will have been a week well spent. The ball must be moved quicker and the tackles must be more aggressive. Derry need to set out that stall very early in order to come away from Longford with a victory, because their opponents can organise themselves very effectively and are unlikely to give up an early lead, especially against a side low in confidence.
The man behind Longford's renaissance is former Kildare stalwart Glenn Ryan. He has them well organised and they can close down space very quickly. It makes them difficult to beat. On top of that they have matchwinners of their own, in the form of Paul Barden, Brian Kavanagh and Sean McCormack. That's actually where this Longford side excels, they can create in-game scenarios that gets the best out of their key individuals. Barden's performances in 2012 is a prime example. He's been around the Longford set up for over a decade, but it's only now that he appears to be reaching his potential. Derry will need to be extra vigilant around him on Saturday, as he has the size, pace and footballing ability to open up a defence. He can also take a score and has introduced into his game an awareness of those around him. Not dissimilar to the role Michael Murphy plays for Donegal.
That's no coincidence, because Ryan has tried to introduce a system similar to that of Donegal's to this group of Longford players. It feels like a lazy comparison, but Longford are like a Donegal-lite or a Kildare-lite. They all work hard and are prepared to sacrifice their own newspaper ratings for the good of the team. Like McGeeney and McGuinness, Ryan has commanded total respect from his players, who are all willing to sip the kool-aid and apply themselves stringently to the manager's instructions. However, as much as Longford have improved, they are nowhere near the same level as Donegal or Kildare. They don't have the same physical conditioning all across the pitch, can't put up the same intense defensive wall and don't display the same level of fluidity from backs to forwards and back again. Their best players are in attack, and their defence has a couple of weak links - no matter how they try to mask them - and this is where the Oak Leafers could potentially make hay. Although that will require getting the ball quickly into Paddy Bradley and Emmett McGuckin (and Eoin Bradley, if he plays) so that the opposition don't have time to structure themselves effectively. As we've alluded to many times, deploying Conleith Gilligan in a deeper role might be the best way to achieve this.
In a sense, this is one of the better years to have drawn Longford. They have been televised live on a couple of occasions and have generally received more exposure than usual. So, there are no secrets about how they will play and the Derry management should be prepared for what they offer. Assuming that the required level of preparation has been carried out, ensuring it has been applied effectively to the team that takes the field is another matter, as the Donegal game proved. A lot might depend on the spirit in the Oak Leaf camp. If the players are still feeling sorry for themselves, a confident Longford outfit will not be long smelling blood and putting us to the sword, but the squad should be eager to show a reaction and prove their critics wrong. As well as increasing the intensity and energy levels, Derry also need to get more productivity from midfield in terms of linking the play and adding more attacking output, and an effective kickout strategy needs to be developed.
When all is considered, it's clear that the Oak Leafers have a lot of improvement to make from Ballybofey and it's extremely debatable whether things will have been turned around effectively in two short weeks. There's no doubt we have enough quality players to get us over the line against Longford, but the way the season has gone and judging by our current form, we've probably left ourselves with too much to do.
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