When Fermanagh footballer Rory Gallagher drives along the shore road from Belleek to Brewster Park in Enniskillen tonight, it will be with a light heart. Next Sunday, May 14th, is early but with the Erne river warm and shimmering, it's not difficult to feel ready for summer football.
In any case, the county team is coming off a strong season of Division One league football. In venues such as Kildare and Sligo they have sent out fliers to the effect that they are whipping boys no more.
Gallagher has his own personal reasons for his good spirits. He is glad to be playing again, to be a contender after too many days of frustration. A player blessed with an abundance of natural attributes, it seems extraordinary that since breaking into the senior squad in 1995 (he was still a minor then), Gallagher has played just 70 minutes of championship football with his county.
"My first game was against Galway in a league game, it was probably Division Two, but even though I played a lot of league matches after that, injuries kept me out of the championship. It was three years later before I finally got a run."
Gallagher nailed four points that day as Fermanagh went down narrowly against then Ulster champions Cavan. For Fermanagh manager Pat King that lone hour illuminated the gifts the youngster could bring to an already waspish attack. He was just one of those kids that took to most sports - even now, he juggles Gaelic with Irish League soccer.
"Of course it's true that we haven't seen the best of Rory yet, he has been badly hit with injuries. That day in 1998, he fell short of the kind of sharpness he is capable of but he still did a lot of things very well. The encouraging thing about now is that he seems to have returned from his most recent injury particularly well, his fitness level is very high given his limited participation."
Gallagher remembers every detail of how he suffered last year's injury, when he was fouled in the fourth minute of Portadown's game against Crusaders in January 2nd. "I knew straight away that it was serious because the pain was more severe than anything I'd felt before. It was cruciate ligaments."
He was operated on in April and played his first Gaelic match, a Sigerson Cup game, with Sligo IT in February 2000.
"It did get you down, it seemed like a long way back and then in the summer, when Fermanagh beat Monaghan, I was just watching it in the crowd. It was great to see the win, which was a while coming, but hard having to miss out."
Not that such deprivation was without precedent. In 1997, Gallagher played the entire season with the county, blending into King's new regime only to see a similar injury betray him as the championship approached. The county did not make the Ulster semi-final stages - they never did in the 1990s - and Gallagher at times felt jinxed, destined to sit out all the sultry days.
But after resuming training with the team this February, the run-in to the hard summer turf has been smooth. Gallagher's main difficulty was making himself available to soccer club Portadown on a Saturday and his county the day after.
"I suppose as a manager I have found it a bit frustrating," offers Pat King, "but we tried to work around it. "I probably felt that for Rory to play on a Saturday, it would be impossible for him to recover for a game the next day. But, that said, he had put in some very good performances over the league."
Statistics speak: three points from play against Down, five against Clare and the same in the damp squib against Derry.
"He has tremendously accurate kicking range but I would say that his main attribute is his vision. He is a fine player on the ball and his ability to bring other forwards into the game is invaluable," says King.
Gallagher has, with luck, many good seasons left in him yet but reckons that you can only prepare for so long.
"This is as good a year as any. Right now, we aren't looking at anything other than the Monaghan game but broadly speaking, we want to improve on last years record. I remember when I started in 1995, there was a definite lack of self-belief about the squad. Disillusioned with themselves or whatever. But a lot of good players have come through since then and lads like the Brewsters, Paddy McGuinness and Liam McBarron got used to winning at Sigerson level or with St Michael's.
"The fear is gone now and we have been on the verge for quite a while. We have to take the next step sometime."
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