The beauty of sport is that, for all the planning and the organising and the science behind it, sometimes a bit of magic is what wins the day.
Malachy O’Rourke and Rory Gallagher are two of the most meticulous coaches in the country. Both will have their teams prepared and then some ahead of Sunday’s Ulster final but, when it comes down to it, they’re not the ones in control of their fate.
One of the most difficult yet effective things for a coach to do is empower his players.
You can set up your team, drill your philosophy into their heads and work on patterns and systems until the cows come home but it is them who have to go out and do it. And it is the players who will win you the game.
That’s why this provincial decider is particularly intriguing.
Donegal and Monaghan might know each other better than anyone and they might do more homework than anyone would even like thinking about and, for large spells, that planning and caution might hinder the game as a spectacle.
But it only means that it’s going to take something out of the ordinary to win it.
And both teams have that in their arsenal.
Colm McFadden has gone through a bit of a rebirth this year. Compared to his own high standards set impossibly through his career, the Donegal forward underperformed in the last two seasons.
This year, Gallagher has brought him back. To his very best.
In their first outing against Tyrone, the men from the hills showed that their attacking strategy was what would win them games when the perception is that their defence is their trump card. But defences do not win games.
All of Donegal’s efforts against Tyrone were from inside what you would call the scoring zone. They keep teams out of that like their lives depended on it and they get into it like it’s the only possible avenue on their road.
And people like Colm McFadden show how. Against Derry’s mean defence in particular.
Colm McFadden picks up the ball from beyond the 45′ in their semi final, Derry’s backline is set up to perfection. But McFadden doesn’t fear the bodies like a side like Dublin continue to show that they do.
McFadden goes at the defence and he manages to squeeze one over with three men hanging off him.
Again, McFadden collects the ball beyond the Derry blanket. Two men are about to meet him 40 metres from goal and another will treble up, coming into the picture.
But Donegal have no stigma about a swarming defence – they wrote the book on it. They treat it for what it is. It’s only men in your way, skin and bones. They sweat and bleed and they tire like anyone and McFadden runs straight through them and curls over again. No respect. No fear.
Sometimes, Donegal score from beyond the scoring zone though. But that’s okay when you have a little man named Michael Murphy in your pack.
Against Derry, he was the sole difference between the sides and he was the only undoing of Derry’s otherwise perfect game plan.
What do you do when a man wants to swing one over from there? You can’t do anything.
But Monaghan have their own aces.
At 14 apiece in their Ulster quarter final, just three minutes to go having trailed by three, Conor McManus led from the front. And the winning score comes from the sideline with one man thrown to ground and another presumably thinking that the angle was much too tight to be shooting from.
Impossible is nothing with these guys.
McManus got the ball in his hands just five times in that second half against Cavan, three times he scored. He’s patient, he waits inside, he stalks the posts and he springs to life when his team bring him into the game. More importantly, he springs to life where they need him. Not out the field hand passing it off.
Then take the Hughes brothers.
Kieran Hughes is having a fantastic campaign to date drifting from full forward to midfield at his own command. Inside, he can win different kinds of ball and do whatever he likes with it. Out the field, he controls the game and, yes, builds the supply line to Monaghan’s own power generator.
This is how McManus was found against Cavan in that game that was decided by a point.
Hughes is devastating inside but, when he’s out, he’s just as important. Probably more so.
And you have Darren. Floating around the forward line where the hell he wants to.
Darren Hughes caught the ball above his head – on the move – with four men around him against Cavan as O’Rourke’s side mounted their comeback. He powered through them like a freight train and hammered over the bar when he had burst his way in on goal.
Moments of magic won Monaghan that game, not their system. And they have the players to replicate it again.
Moments of magic were and are what separate Donegal from a side like Derry.
Both Monaghan and Donegal are equipped with magicians. And whoever gets weaving their wand most on Sunday will decide the Ulster final.
It won’t be systems or science or anything planned. It will be a moment of magic.
Big games require big plays. Big plays require big players. There will be no shortage of them in Clones.
