'They have taken a huge step forward today'

GAELIC GAMES:IN THE crowded scrum beneath the Clones stand one feels the full brunt of the winning and the losing of the Ulster football final – and it's a brutally raw mix of emotions.

From one end of the tunnel comes the shouts and roars from the Donegal dressingroom – their 19-year wait finally over – while at other end, 69-year-old John Brennan is pressed up against the wall, firing questions back at us as quick as we can fire them at him.

“Was that was the turning point of the game?” he asks, after we ask him what he thought about the Donegal penalty, early in the second half.

“Well I had a better view than the referee. He decided it was a penalty, and in my view, he was over 60 metres away. Okay, Donegal got the penalty and they took the penalty. I am not blaming Donegal. They took the opportunity that was handed to them. I will put it as mildly as that.

“He was asked to consult with his umpires. He refused to. We should be allowed to ask the referee why they have awarded something. I don’t care if people think I am wrong or if I am breaking GAA rules. That is wrong what he did there today. His umpires were there for him to consult.

“Then earlier on in the game, I thought we had a good chance of at least a 13-metre free. It transpires that it was a 45. With about 10 minutes to go, we had a fella who was manhandled. I will put it as mildly as that and we didn’t get a penalty.

“How can you legislate for us having two penalty claims, and getting none? And our goalkeeper comes out, their forward runs into him, and they get a penalty? Try and get inside that man’s brain. Don’t try and get inside my brain. I would love to get inside his brain. Try to ask him if there is something in Portlaoise that I don’t understand in Derry.

“I would love him to come and tell me, irrespective of GAA rules, and irrespective of Croke Park, and tell me as the Derry manager where he got that from. He was 60 metres away. I just beg him to do it. Be a gentleman, and come and talk to me man to man. Tell me what our goalkeeper did to constitute him awarding them a penalty.

“Can I put it in any simpler terms?”

Probably not – but the reality now is that Derry must face Kildare in six days’ time – the only victims this year of the dreaded six-day turnaround.

Brennan doesn’t expect any sympathy: “If decisions go like that out there how could I get an extension to a six-day turnaround. You may ask Croke Park.”

For Donegal, who better to end the 19-year wait than Jim McGuinness. He’d tasted that success as a teenager, and with an unavoidable sense of destiny, has tasted it again from the sidelines.

“It’s a phenomenal feeling,” he says. “I was very, very lucky as a player because I came into the Donegal squad and ended up with an Ulster and an All-Ireland. The other achievements never got to that same level but at the same time I was lucky enough to be involved in the first victory. You move on from the pain in the past. It’s nice to put to bridge that gap and go full circle.

“I was also a loser in 1993, 1998, 2002 and 2004 Ulster finals and those dressingrooms are horrible places to be. Everybody who plays sport will understand that. We’re going in there now, and for us to stand and look at that cup standing in the middle of the dressingroom is absolutely brilliant for the players.

“It’s all down to the players, they’ve worked hard, they’ve knuckled down, it was the same group of players that came in for an awful lot of criticism.

“We’re just delighted that they got an opportunity to turn that around and to prove to the people of Ulster that they are contenders for provincial championships.

“They have taken a huge step forward today for themselves. As a man said to me, nothing is neutral, you’re either moving forward or you’re moving back so we have to try and improve now and ultimately give everything again in two weeks’ time in an All-Ireland quarter final.”