Dominant Donegal’s ambitions go further than Ulster
LESS than 24 hours after Tyrone embraced regime change, Donegal showed, once again, where the real power lies in Ulster.
The comfort for whoever gets to succeed Mickey Harte is that at least their terms of reference come in black and white – take down the county that has supplanted them.
Their discomfort is that it will be far easier asked than delivered.
Victory sets up a ninth Ulster final appearance in 10 years and moves Donegal to within 70 minutes of a historic third Anglo Celt in a row – and it all felt so utterly routine.
The democracy that Ulster football prides itself on is fading fast on the evidence here. Armagh are a team on an upwards trajectory with a high-powered attack, but they were swatted away with such dismissive ease.
If nothing else this result underlined that Kerry’s Championship exit did not remove Dublin’s main threat to denying them six in a row. The biggest obstacle to the Dubs is now presented by the less celebrated – but much better balanced – side in green and gold.
And that balance is what makes this Donegal team a little dangerous. True, not too much should be read into this Armagh were quickly reminded that whatever their National League status might suggest, they are still very much a second tier team in the grand scheme of things.
Kieran McGeeney’s team arrived here with an attack lauded as the best outside the game’s top flight but such was their impotence that they did not score from open play until Jamie Clarke registered in the 48th minute, at which stage their departure from this year’s Championship had been franked.
After securing promotion to Division 1 last month, McGeeney had warned his team that their reward is likely to be a tough slog neext term.
To be fair, they won’t always run into a team like Donegal who, even allowing for Armagh’s shortcomings, produced their most complete performance of Declan Bonner’s three-year tenure. They were simply irresistible in the second quarter when they banked a half-time lead of 1-12 to 0-3 that felt more like a declaration.
True, they did have the wind at their backs but that hardly mattered because their control and their quality did not need assistance.
As with the opening round win over Tyrone, when Ciarán Thompson and Michael Langan led the way, this was another display where Bonner’s emerging talents looked like leaders, with Peadar Mogan and Niall O’Donnell showing the way.
Inevitably, Bonner’s team will invite comparisons with the one that Jim McGuinness built in the last decade but – with the exception of a handful of survivors – the only real similarity is their capacity to think their way through games and exploit every edge.
The irony is that when the advance mark was introduced, Bonner was one if its biggest critics, but that has not stopped him from dialling it into their game plan. Caolan McGonigle, Hugh McFadden and O’Donnell all converted marks in a first-half blitz that yielded eight successive points to give the eventual winners a 0-10 to 0-2 lead inside 30 minutes.
That says much about the strengths of a team that can make history by becoming the first from the county to win three Ulster titles in a row, reflecting their level of coaching in blending the new rule into their tactics, their physical power in securing possession and in the kicking ability to ensure this was as much about being able to pass the ball as catch it.
When you add that kicking game to their dynamic running, they look like a side built to challenge in the air and on the ground.
Fittingly, the score that officially killed the game came from the same page of the playbook as Michael Murphy failed to collect another attempted mark in the 34th minute, but the ball broke to the Mogan, who fired to the back of the net.
After that, there was little left to see. The winners, while endeavouring to maintain standards, slackened a little in the second half to allow Armagh play a little ball – but not enough to do any damage.
And Bonner used that period to unveil the depth of his squad, not least in unleashing Paddy McBrearty who, for the second game in a row, failed to start.
Within seconds of his arrival on the pitch at the end of the third quarter, he had punched the ball over the bar.
He will be ready and primed for when he is needed most early next month in an All-Ireland semi-final waiting to happen when Dublin’s immovable object crashes into this irresistible force.
Dublin don’t just have a challenger, they are now facing a team who believe that they can be champions.