OAK LEAVES BLOOMING

Why Monaghan hadn’t seen the Derry game plan coming is one of the questions pondered by JACK MADDEN in his post mortem of Sunday’s Ulster Championship defeat

Lightning doesn’t strike twice. In the most Bear Grylls manner possible you adapt. You improvise. You overcome. Obstacles are there to be knocked. Hurdles are there to be cleared. You might stumble, you might fall, but you inevitably get back up. You inevitably learn. Half-time and Monaghan are seven points down to Derry. The same Derry side that held a seven point lead at the interval only two weeks prior in Omagh. In the Athletic Grounds press box, a general consensus was agreed between Farney men, Oak Leafers and neutrals alike.

It was as though Monaghan had not seen this coming. It was as though lightning had struck twice. When Gareth McKinless sidestepped a stranded Darren Hughes, Shane Carey surely feared the worst as he tracked back to no avail. Rory Beggan dived, the ball was leathered straight and true. Monaghan were prised apart. McKinless from deep, but he wasn’t smothered, or battered, or bruised. From the sea floor to the surface, his heartbeat was constant until he rifled home and sucked in the Derry roar, a roar all too rare in recent times. His army rose as another people’s sank.

The oxygen levels dwindled and dwindled. The Derry machine was firing on all cylinders, led by the operator and technician Rory Gallagher. Monaghan were running on fumes. Interestingly Gallagher was right by his men’s side almost until throw-in. As Monaghan faced the Tri-colour and prepared for Amhrán na bhFiann, Gallagher still barked and bellowed, utilising every last second. By the time the anthem did play he was undoubtedly…