Forward to past success

It was a kick which stilled us in our summer reveries. This was in July of 1991, when Gaelic football seemed infused with a newness, an almost forgotten capacity for colour.

For weeks, teams had been living gloriously and dangerously. In Leinster, the Dublin and Meath scrap had developed into an absorbing passion play which rendered other sports a side-show. Their series of draws seemed to spark off similar trends on Gaelic fields all over Ireland.

The latest happened in Castlebar on a hazy afternoon, with Mayo clinging to their single-point lead in injury-time. Roscommon, their raw and novel opponents, had a free awarded way down field. Mattie Reilly, flushed and breathing hard, stood over the ball and gestured for Roscommon's young free-kicker to make his way out.

Nine years on, Derek Duggan sits in a public bar in a Dublin suburb and allows himself a smile as he is, once more, asked to reflect upon one of those moments that transcends sport, the competition, that somehow become emblematic of, and inseparable, from the very era.

"Some parts of that season are a bit vague now but yeah, people do always remind you of that free. When I was jogging out, I half expected Mattie to kick it short to me and I showed for it once or twice. It seemed a fierce distance out. Then it became obvious he wanted me to have a go.

"I can't say I felt sure I'd land it because I'd never taken a kick from that far out before. But I knew I hit it on the button and saw Tommy Grehan's hands in the air before it had even reached the posts. And I have to admit, it was an astonishing feeling."

Referee Pat Egan whistled for the ball and Roscommon were alive for another Sunday, 0-14 a piece.

By sundown, word had spread with the intensity of a heather burning. That kick, that single feat, took on an afterglow which has not dimmed any through the waning of subsequent years.

As Paddy Downey, a witness to that ageing day in McHale Park commented in this newspaper: "Ripley, with all his tall tales, would have found it hard to equal. This GAA season is his bailiwick for sure; belief is being stretched to breaking point."

Crouched on the sidelines that afternoon was John O'Mahony, then a young Mayo manager with reason for considerable optimism. His team had cut swathes off Galway and were radiant with promise.

"It's one of those moments that has legend attached to it now. People will talk about it as if the ball travelled for two miles. But what, 60 metres or so in injury-time? It was a great pressure kick. Derek just burst onto the scene with that free, made an incredible impact."

And it was no quirk of history, there was no freak aspect to it. Roscommon came back two weeks later and finished Mayo, with Duggan drilling eight points from frees. They went to Croke Park, fearless Connacht champions and for an hour against Meath they delivered.

"We were right there but I remember so well the call for the stewards to circle the pitch, the sure sign that it was into the last few minutes. That seemed to push Meath on, they knew the situation so well and it seemed to stifle us. And so we lost by a point."

Crushing though it was, locals saw off the summer around Castlerea and Elphin with happy forecasts of good days to come. But it became clouded and unrecognisable, that luminous future and Roscommon have not won a Connacht championship since. Seasons tumbled into one another, men with too many scars and new priorities took a last look around the dressingroom and neighbouring counties seized their own moments.

So now, nearly a decade later, with half of Roscommon expected to make the always interesting trip to Clones for Sunday's National League semi-final, it has to be classed as an avoidable reference point, that beautiful summer, that enduring kick.

But where Derek Duggan is concerned, this is perhaps a little unfair. It is not as if he has been in deep-freeze since then.

He's been busy since then, filling out, working in Dublin and kicking thousands of hours of football. Busy living. It's one of those cruelties that sport reserves for young athletes; those who reach the feverish heights at the outset are only later afforded the opportunity to recognise how rare such moments are at some point down the line.

"That's why I'm saying to the younger lads in our panel now to cling on to this," said Duggan. "For counties like Roscommon, with a small population, things come in cycles. For me, it was frustrating at times wondering when we would get it together again. But if I didn't believe that our day would come around again, then I wouldn't be playing now."

Duggan has been playing all his life. Castlerea was his hometown and he attended St Jarlath's, 30 miles away. By the time he was in sixth year, in 1990, he was established, one of the known names on the team along with Ja Fallon and the Meehans from Galway. That summer, he went home to await the Leaving Cert results and a gang of them - half the team hadn't even reached the legal drinking age - got a head of steam up and reached the Roscommon county final against Clan na Gael. By the autumn which followed Duggan was a county man.

"It was a good team I came into and once key men like Mattie (Reilly) and Pauric McNeill and Pat Doorey went, gaps appeared which aren't easily filled.

"It's easy to explain it all, looking back. Then, in 1998, the team had a reasonably good championship, might have got out of Connacht but I was haunted with injury around then. I didn't feel I contributed much to the team at all. So I was anxious to make my mark again."

And last winter, when darkness fell early and the world was pretty much oblivious to Gaelic football, all the unseen particles required for success blew Roscommon's way again.

After taking an unceremonious drubbing in the first league game against Galway, Roscommon - novices in the top flight - made a stand.

"In previous years, when we were in lower divisions, it was hard to get motivated. London, Tipperary, that was the opposition. This year, Gay (Sheerin) said from the start that there'd be no copping out. No sessions missed. And we lost a few lads through that but as a team, we have grown immeasurably.

"Qualifying for these semi-finals was the watershed. I was surprised at the reaction but they have been starved of success, to be quite honest."

When he went back to the city the day after they clinched it against Donegal, he found he was on the good side of the ribbing at work. Punch in time with Dubs and you know that when your down on your football luck, all you'll get is salty humour. Now, it was his turn to talk it up to the city folks.

"Dublin, you know, there is this aura about them that stems back to the 1970's," he laughs. "It was nice to be able to come in and have reason to shout about something."

Right now, it is as much fun as it has ever been and Roscommon are, well, kind of in fashion. "Derek Duggan's back better than ever," they'll nod around the country. But he never went away.

"This was a guy with the world at his feet in 1991," says John O'Mahony. "All Star nomination in his first season. Sport always reminds us that good times are fleeting.

"Duggan's first season was admirable in itself but to have a few years in the wilderness with injuries and maintain the desire, that shows considerable character also."

No one should be fooled. They won't spend the summer on the beer if they win in Clones and maybe snatch a piece of early joy. It's all still about the championship and Gay Sheerin is a man who wants, at least, a provincial title.

But then, don't write this off either. Sunday in Clones matters to this western side. They'll sing in the narrow streets and make a day of it.

"If we go out of the league against Derry, it's no catastrophe. But to win it. Yes, we'd love to. Everything counts," laughs the man who knows this better than most.