Longford give Derry the Blues

So that's it then. For another year anyway.

On Saturday evening, with Michael Duffy's whistle greeted by joyous cheers from the home fans in Pearse Park, Derry's inevitable end came as early as many expected, but sooner than most had hoped. That's the reality of the 2012 season. It was bad enough that 'lowly-Longford' were heavy favourites to beat Derry, but that they went on to do so with some degree of comfort is the harshest reality of all.

And yet this was far from a poor Oak Leaf performance. Castigated from Coleraine to Cork in the aftermath of the Donegal defeat a fortnight ago, for not showing the requisite fight, spirit and hunger one could reasonably expect from a county side, Derry produced a performance that displayed heavy doses of those very same ingredients. They showed intense commitment throughout, stuck diligently to the task at hand and fought to the bitter end. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to avoid defeat. Instead it rubber-stamped Derry's championship exit before the calendar had even turned to July.

In his post-game interview, John Brennan chose to concentrate on the performance of the referee, but when talking about the game itself he specifically pin-pointed the ten minutes before half-time as the period in which Derry lost this football match:

"The last 10 minutes of the first half, we let the game slip. That was the only point in the game that Longford dominated us. We were careless, gave the ball away and were punished."

He was spot on. Up until that point, Brennan's side had dominated the ball. Patsy Bradley and Michael Friel had a stranglehold in midfield, while John McCamley was offering them fantastic support in winning both primary and secondary possession. The only surprise amongst the handful of Derry fans that made the trip to support their side was that Derry were only level, at 0-5 apiece. The Oak Leafers just couldn't turn their superior possession rate into scores, despite playing with whatever advantage the swirling breeze was offering. The main reason was a lack of composure and basic errors in the Longford's defensive third of the field. Too often the ball did not stick, too often the wrong decision was made by the player with the ball and on numerous occasions the final pass went straight into Longford hands. Add to all that a few missed chances in front of goal, and instead of being clear on the scoreboard Derry were only level.

Then, for the final ten minutes of the half, the home side took control. The Longford midfielders had hitherto jumped with their Derry counterparts on kick-outs only to see Patsy Bradley break the ball down to an oncoming red and white shirt, but in the final minutes of the half they eventually caught on to the Oak Leaf ploy. McIlvaney and Keegan suddenly decided not to compete aerially and the home side swept up on the ground. With Seanie McCormack in deadly form in front of goal, Longford scored three points without reply. 0-8 to 0-5 behind at the break, Derry were facing an uphill climb.

Glenn Ryan would have told his side at half-time to run at the Derry defence, try and win a few frees and keep the scoreboard ticking over. They did this with an easy regularity throughout the second half. McCormack scored eleven points in total, nine of which came from frees. In contrast, Derry found it hard to create any point-scoring opportunities (especially in the second half) and could barely even manufacture a free for themselves. The Oak Leaf forwards just couldn't find any space against a tight and dogged Longford defence. Enough possession had been won, but too often the ball was played to the wing or into the corner of the pitch, asking the forward to run away from goal and subsequently away from the scoring zone. In the meantime, the Longford defence funneled back, forcing Derry to recycle possession before the attack (more often than not) broke down. On umpteen occasions in that second half, Paddy Bradley received the ball in the left corner of the pitch, not an ideal position for a left-footed player. This meant that Bradley - who must have won every ball that came his way - was constantly forced to try and work possession out, by which time the scoring chance was gone. It appeared that Paddy Bradley was played on the left to accommodate Eoin Bradley on the right. Eoin should have been played in a deeper role to allow Paddy and Emmett McGuckin more space inside. On one occasion when Eoin carried the ball from deep he scored an excellent point. At another stage, when Paddy found himself on the right, he too cut inside to kick a trademark score. These were Derry's only two points from play in the second half, and were an indication of the positional switches that should have been made.

Despite that, a goal from Barry McGoldrick grabbed the Oak Leafers by the scruff of the neck, right back into the game. Twice. Under the circumstances it was no surprise that a Derry defender would have to come up the field in order to break the deadlock, but no-one would have expected McGoldrick to grab two goals. Both scores came against the run of play. The first goal was an excellent turn and finish following a sublime pass from Paddy Bradley and it brought the sides level. The second goal came with about ten (injury time) minutes left on the clock. After a long sideline kick from Eoin Bradley, McGoldrick gathered possession on the edge of the square, side-stepped his marker and finished to the roof of the net. This score put his side a point ahead. And it should have given Derry the impetus to go on and close the game out. Instead it seemed to have the opposite effect, somehow putting a pep in the step of Longford, who wasted no time in not only regaining the lead, but subsequently increasing it to three points.

If anything, the two goals masked Derry's deficiencies in the final third, and managed to keep them in a game that was slowly getting away from them. Longford were able to get their scores (and their frees) much more easily as they ran at pace as the Oak Leaf defence to draw frees, and used Brian Kavanagh as a target man to hold up the ball and set up the nearest runner for a scoring opportunity. And yet, the Derry defence played quite well. Chris McKaigue could have done little more to curb the influence of Brian Kavanagh (to whom the ball just seems to stick) while Ryan Dillon and Barry McGoldrick kept their direct opponents fairly quiet in play. Ryan Scott had been thrown in at the deep-end, but looked so comfortable in the right half-back slot he could have been there for years, while Mark Craig and Sean Leo McGoldrick barely put a foot wrong and did a good job in stopping the Longford runners from deep. Just ask Paul Barden, who struggled to get into the match. The locals were blaming Barden's failure to perform to his full capacity on a pre-game, pain-killing injection (ankle), but even so, Derry shackled him well throughout and he's unlikely to be as quiet again this season. However in Kavanagh and McCormack, Longford had enough to get the job done.

Following a melee in the final minute of injury-time (which resulted in Barry McGoldrick's remarkable game taking a final turn for the worse when he received a second yellow card), Derry had one last chance to rescue an unlikely draw. It's been well enough documented since, but Joe Diver's magnificent catch and transportation of the ball - somehow - across the goal-line, provided the game with one lasting moment of controversy. After a few television replays it is still unclear what happened when twenty bodies converged on Damien Sheridan's goal, but referee Michael Duffy seemed pretty satisifed that he knew exactly what happened and blew for a free out with the kind of decisiveness not usually associated with the Sligo whistler.

He blew for full-time almost immediately after and despite the final decision on the goal-that-wasn't, even the most diehard Derry supporter (most of whom were likely in attendance) couldn't argue that the best team had won. Derry hadn't performed too badly, but the scoreboard said it all. The Oak Leafers only managed ten scores, while their opponents had put up 17. Unfortunately at this level, that's just not good enough to win football games.

Some more thoughts from Saturday's game:

• Even though John Brennan vehemently criticised the referee after the game, it should be noted that nothing the referee did (or didn't do) in this game, was the reason for our defeat.
• Having said that, it's a deep concern that after a performance of such inexplicable ineptness in the Athletic Grounds last week, a referee like Duffy is back out on the Championship circuit less than one week later.
• Michael Quinn at centre-half back did an excellent job for the O'Farrell men in terms of marshalling his defence and helping to set up attacks, but his marking ability is questionable. His athleticism matched well with Mark Lynch's running ability, but he may have struggled with a more creative player, perhaps like Conleith Gilligan.
• Colin P Smyth at right half-back also looked a little suspect. John McCamley over-powered him throughout, but did his best work in and around the midfield area (though he also popped up for two good points in the first half). This was another area that Derry could have exploited a little better, in an attacking sense.
• The Longford selector in the orange bib, getting involved in the ruckus at the end, was none other than former stalwart Padraic Davis. A tricky forward in his day, Davis played against the Oak Leafers in an All-Ireland qualifier in 2002 when he scored a remarkable free off the ground from the 50m line (on the sideline).
• Speaking of that game in 2002, Barry McGoldrick's two goals were reminiscent of Anthony Tohill's two-goal haul in Pearse Park ten years ago. McGoldrick certainly showed the same sort of leadership, but this time, the goals couldn't propel Derry to victory.
• Speaking of leadership, Chris McKaigue is beginning to look the part in the Oak Leaf defence. He led the charge forward from full-back on a few occasions in the second half. He should be persisted with at full-back (especially in the absence of any other natural solutions in this area), but might be best suited in the half-back line.
• Finally, fair play to Longford for taking on the mantle of favourites and closing out victory when the game went against them in the second half. This is a side that have been training since October and have the grit and self-belief that previous Longford sides lacked. The qualifier system is weighed very heavily against the so-called lesser counties, but Glenn Ryan's outfit might have another couple of days left in the sun yet.

It's a Long way back from here

Derry travel to Longford on Saturday to either salvage something from a season that has gone horribly wrong, or to put the final nail in it. Following the performance against Donegal a fortnight ago, Derry fans will be extremely pessimistic about their side's chances of going much further this year, and - never needing too much of an excuse at the best of times - are unlikely to travel even in respectable numbers to Pearse Park.

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.