1983 is bitter-sweet for Derek

Paul Fitzpatrick

Readers of a certain vintage will probably be shocked to think that 36 years have passed since Cavan and Donegal met in the Ulster SFC final.
Cavan, under the legendary Gabriel Kelly, came into that game as a surprise package but almost pulled it off. The Blues’ 20-year-old full-forward Derek McDonnell, from Ramor United, ended the season as the Ulster Championship’s top scorer, having bagged 4-12, but it was little consolation.
Looking back, one emotion stands out for McDonnell – “sheer disappointment”.
“You were just gutted after being beaten,” McDonnell recalled this week.
Recently, someone sent him a link to the video of the final, in which he scored a brilliant early goal but it’s another opening in front of goal that haunts him.
“Do I look back on it? Oh Jesus, don’t talk to me! I used to torture myself. I tortured myself…
“I missed a chance. The ball came in long, I think Donal [Donohoe] or Adge [King] kicked the ball in. Noel McCole came out to it and it bounced off his chest and I was flying in. If I was out two yards further I’d nearly have fisted it in over his head but my momentum took me in on top of him. I turned back.
“If it was again, I’d say there was someone outside me I could have passed it to. And I often think could I have kicked it with my right foot… Anyway. That left it [losing the game] worse for me.”
Cavan had been beaten by Antrim in 1982, McDonnell missing out with a back injury. The following year, they saw off Derry, Tyrone and Fermanagh to reach the final.
The Dublin-based players trained in the city with the Civil Service club, under the guidance of former Cavan player Garrett O’Reilly. McDonnell, Donohoe (the pair were housemates), Jim Reilly, Martin Lynch and a handful of others didn’t miss the long treks down the road and when the sod hardened and championship came, the team blossomed.
“The Derry win in Ballinascreen was a big win, it would have been unexpected.
“In the next game we played Tyrone, they were a really good team, Frank McGuigan, Eugene McKenna, that team. Martin Lynch scored a few great frees to win it for us. We were a point down going into the last five minutes and he got two in a row from 45 yards out, a few yards in from the wing. Fabulous frees.”
Cavan then dismantled a decent Fermanagh side, who had been in the final the year before, with McDonnell bagging 2-5, although, true to form, he plays down his own contribution.
“The two goals were in the last six or seven minutes of the game,” he says modestly.
The Virginia man lined out on the edge of the square, flanked by Lynch and McNamee in an all-Ramor full-forward line. Outside them, Donohoe and his Laragh team-mate Ray Cullivan were deadly.
“Donal had played in the Ulster final in ’78, as had several others on the team. He was a fabulous player. Ray Cullivan was brilliant too, he could deliver a perfect pass with either foot. If you made the run and were in front, he would see you and give the pass. He was a class act.
“Michael Faulkner on the 40 was outstanding as well. And a big part of our run that year was the leadership of Jim Reilly and the midfield performances of Adge and Danny Finnegan.”
The final was played on a scorching day in Clones.
“It was some place to play football, it’s probably, apart from Croke Park, nearly the most iconic football ground to play on,” says Derek.
“Connacht and Munster play their provincial finals in different venues whereas in Ulster, it’s Clones every year. There’s something about it, Clones. The atmosphere is unreal. I remember in that Ulster final, you couldn’t hear a word. I think there were 35,000 at the game and you couldn’t hear anything out on the pitch.”
Cavan pushed Donegal hard, with sub Stephen King making a big impact, but the winners eventually took over.
“They were in control in the last 10 minutes I think. Seamus Bonner got a late penalty and tapped it over the bar and I think they won by three.”
Why Cavan didn’t kick on in the following seasons remains a mystery. Kelly (“a gentleman,” says McDonnell, who was “very fair and straight and loved by the players”) was in charge again in 1984 but Cavan exited in the first round.
“The next year we played Derry in Breffni and they beat us in the first round. There were no qualifiers and suddenly after all the build-up, you’re gone. In hindsight, that was the worst about that era.
“Big preparation for the first round of the championship, 23rd of May or whatever it was, and if you were beaten then, nothing. That was the cruel part of it in one sense. Players put so much into it.
“Why did we not succeed after that? I don’t know how to answer that. Derry beat us in the semi-final in ’85 and Tyrone beat us the next year, they went on to the All-Ireland final in ’86.”
By then, the late Eugene McGee was the boss.
“There would have been a bit of expectation because he was after managing Offaly to their fantastic win in ’82 and this was only three years later. But he just couldn’t get us across the line. In ’87 we beat Monaghan and then lost to Derry [in a replay] and in ’88, Monaghan beat us and went on and won it.”
McDonnell was still on board in 1992 but didn’t feature in the championship, another replay loss, this time to eventual All-Ireland champions Donegal. Later that year, he won his second SFC medal, winning Man of the Match with a total of 1-3; seven years earlier, when he won his first, he scored 2-5 in the final.
McDonnell had long been ear-marked as a player to watch. He played minor football for the county for three years, coming into the senior panel at 18 in October 1981, and U21 for five.
In his first year with the U21s, they lost to Donegal and McHugh in Ballyshannon.
“That was the first time anyone had seen McHugh from our neck of the woods. I remember we were all talking about this little genius,” he remembers.
Ironically, then, McHugh was managing Cavan by the time McDonnell’s inter-county career finished up.
“I was actually still around when McHugh came, he gave me a few chances in the league. I was 32. I didn’t play in the championship that year [1995]. I remember him ringing me asking me to go and look at a player for him and I got the message, I said to him ‘I’ll go and look at him but what are you telling me here?’” he laughs, without a trace of bitterness.
A cruciate ligament injury in 1996 derailed him but he returned to line out for Ramor for several more years. And when he finished playing, he started training underage teams in Walterstown in Meath, where he lives and for whom his sons line out.
In 2016, Derek was selector and forwards coach when Ramor United won the championship after a 24-year wait. Can he see Cavan ending a similar famine this Sunday?
“I do give them a chance, I surely do. There are two good teams in it. I think Cavan are showing a lot of composure, there’s something about them, a confidence. There’s no reason why they won’t win it.
“I know Donegal demolished Tyrone and I was very impressed with them but Donegal didn’t annihilate Fermanagh either.
“Cavan are after playing in Division 1 of the league and those seven games are a very good experience and have to be a help. You have loads of situations in matches like that that you will learn from.
“In hindsight it was good to get the second game against Armagh. Look, I’m hopeful. I’d be confident enough.”
In his own playing days, McDonnell would ignore calls and well-wishers in the week before a big game. There are many distractions which can trip a player up and he would advise the Cavan panellists to ignore the hype as much as possible.
“Cavan people are genuine people and there will be a massive outpouring of goodwill towards the players. I often said that to teams, everyone will be asking you about the game and how you are and all that craic and that can nearly destroy teams. If you’re kind of gullible, it could seep in and make you complacent.
“You have to keep focused but I think these Cavan players will, they have plenty of experience.”
Just like the man himself.