Conor McManus: Despite the late sucker punch, Derry look to have turned a corner and will fancy a crack at Dublin

Irish Times

03-06-2025

In Celtic Park on Sunday, as Matthew Tierney gets the vital touch for
Galway's
fourth goal to put them a point ahead, you can see this fellah just behind the goal. He ends up head in hands, bent at the waist and jumping in the air.
I didn't recognise him, but chances are he was part of the
Derry
back-room team in some form or capacity. His reaction was probably widespread. Tierney scores with 68:50 on the clock and gives his team a lead, which they didn't particularly deserve, and there's a minute left.
It also probably highlights what Derry had been talking about and had been preparing for all week, putting themselves in this position and closing it out. So, now they need a score to salvage something.
They went short, and Galway are probably disappointed that they allowed it at that stage of the game. You'd be hoping to get pressure on the kick-out, force it long, 50-50, and try to have a say on where the ball goes or at least break it.
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In the final moments of games, everything becomes so frantic, and it's just trying to keep cool heads. Galway would have been much better served just looking to force that ball out long.
That last minute is still a crisis for Derry. Their season hasn't gone well, relegated in the league and without a win in the championship, but they have been better than their results suggest or at least unlucky in some of the league matches.
Their Achilles heel has been not closing out games. There were days where they've had themselves in really good positions throughout the league and championship, but they haven't just managed to close it out.
Supporters at Sunday's SFC round-two game between Derry and Galway at Celtic Park. Photograph: Lorcan Doherty/INPHO
Against
Kerry
in the league they conceded two goals in the last 90 seconds to lose a match they were leading by three. Donegal was another obvious example. Eight points up, they conceded 1-6 in the last 10 minutes.
On Sunday they were again eight points up midway through the second half and six ahead coming down the stretch. They'll be disappointed with that element of it, but they're putting themselves in positions where they can go and win games.
They look to me as if they have turned a corner, though. Conor Glass has been exceptional for them, leading by example and trying to drag them through challenging circumstances, but they've gradually got players back from injury and back into form, which last weekend demonstrated.
They were really aggressive, and it's the first time we've seen that from Derry in quite a while in terms of their contact, their tackling and their turnovers.
Glass was central to a lot of what they have done, but you could see others like Ethan Doherty, Paul Cassidy, Pádraig McGrogan and Conor Doherty as if they had decided 'we aren't accepting this any more, we're going to turn this around'. That's how they played.
Anyway, 35 seconds left and Diarmuid Baker gets the short kick-out and they build patiently from the back, keeping the ball, moving it and isolating Glass with a nice backdoor cut.
Derry's Pádraig McGrogan and Conor Glass celebrate a score in the game at Celtic Park. Photograph: Lorcan Doherty/INPHO
In a bit of space, he finds Conor Doherty and it's an easy score. Of course, there were more than 35 seconds left and Derry were able to complete the play after the hooter had sounded so that equaliser was the last action of the day.
This is something that teams are very conscious of and there's obviously work being done on training grounds throughout the country in terms of the last play of a game: this is where we need to control the play, slow it down, don't worry about time, don't worry about the clock, don't get distracted by the hooter.
Just make sure that we are in possession and have men moving to work a decent scoring chance.
You're seeing the last three and four minutes of games, for instance the Ulster final between Donegal and
Armagh
, where the teams are starting to play to the clock depending on the scenario.
If you're three or four points up you're starting to hold possession, keep playing and wind the clock down. It's something that we're not particularly familiar with or used to in the game because you never really knew when the final whistle was coming.
Derry's Conor Glass scores a point as Galway's Céin Darcy challenges. Photograph: Lorcan Doherty/INPHO
The precision of these possession plays has been made possible by the countdown clock and the hooter. Now there's no element of uncertainty as to exactly when the game is about to end and it's allowing for these types of finishes.
There's no option for the referee to run it on a bit. That discretion is gone. Hold the ball and wait for the hooter. Then you can, in effect, blow the whistle yourself.
Galway aren't firing on all cylinders out there around the middle of the minute. They have big performers out there who aren't clicking at the moment.
On paper you're thinking they're very well equipped to win primary possession out around the middle, but in the last two games they've struggled to do that and as a result of that we've seen Connor Gleeson a couple of times trying the tapped, short kick-out that he's run with a couple of times recently.
He tried it in the first half on Sunday, but Derry ended up turning it over and getting a shot away.
Galway's John Maher reacts at the final whistle on Sunday. Photograph: Lorcan Doherty/INPHO
With 10 minutes to go, Paul Conroy, the current Footballer of the Year, is sitting looking on, Cillian McDaid is sitting looking on and, on top of that, Shane Walsh is sitting looking on.
That's a fair few key men to be called ashore before the end.
Galway are going to have to find something different for Armagh. These were the two best teams in the country last year with hardly anything between them, but at this stage the gap looks to have widened in favour of the All-Ireland champions.
The world in general has turned a bit at this stage and Derry will fancy a cut off
Dublin
, who really struggled against Armagh and will be desperate to get Con O'Callaghan back for the last match. On form, and at a neutral venue, Glass and his team have every chance.