KEITH DUGGANtalks to Donegal manager John Joe Doherty, who has used the league campaign to freshen the approach in the county and change the attitude – and a few faces – in the panel

JOHN JOE Doherty knows the lay of the land in the northwest well enough to expect nothing easy in Derry. Advancing to the league final may be a matter of grand indifference to a Damien Cassidy, but posting a significant league victory over their neighbours just a month before the championship begins is not.

Much hinges on tomorrow’s match in Maghera. The result will be central in defining who meets Kerry in the league final and, just as consequential, who packs bags to join Westmeath in Division Two next year.

At best, Donegal have given themselves a fighting chance of surviving in the top flight of the league two years after winning the title. Through each of Donegal’s matches, Doherty has consistently sounded almost carefree about whether his team preserves their status or plays second-tier football next season.

However uneven the team’s performances have been under Doherty, the Glen man has displayed a fearless streak. Donegal won the McKenna Cup fielding young players, and throughout the league Doherty has picked teams according to what he has seen at training.

“I am not sure how many players he has used, it must be well over 30, and for the first time in a while I think that there were teams picked that nobody would have guessed at beforehand,” said Barry Monaghan, the long-serving centre back.

“John Joe came into the job under difficult circumstances, but I think all of the players realised that he had been a top player himself for a long, long time and, along with Tony Boyle and Tommy Ryan, that he knows the game well.

“Players feel they are going to get a fair crack under him. He has given lads a chance and there is a real competition for places.”

On a windblown day in Ballyshannon, Donegal lost a madcap match against Dublin after squeezing most of their productive play into a 10-minute second-half spell that yielded 1-6. It was a match Donegal might have won, and had they done so this visit to Derry would be academic.

Doherty might have pointed to the long cast of established players who were waylaid for several reasons, but he declined the opportunity. Barry Dunnion and Karl Lacey, the lightning Four Masters men who have been among the best defensive finds in years, have been absent through the league. Neil Gallagher, Donegal’s only traditional “big man” midfielder in the Anthony Molloy mould, has been injured. Kevin Cassidy and Colm McFadden have had limited time in this league as well.

Instead, Doherty has used senior men like Monaghan and the indispensable Brian Roper, along with coming players like Stephen Griffin and Charlie Byrne.

The conventional system would have the experienced players drift back into contention and claim starting spots in June. But the most intriguing part of Doherty’s stewardship so far is he has left everyone in the dark as to his plans. The starting 15 may well be in for a radical shake-up.

“I gave a commitment to try as many players as I could in the league and I went down that road as far as I could,” Doherty says now. “Maybe we didn’t give the impression afterwards, but it was disappointing that we couldn’t get a full match out of the team in the earlier games. But they have responded well and it should be a good match against Derry, we have a chance.

“I still don’t feel as if it will be the end of the world if we go down. What we want to do is try and strengthen the squad. I have always felt that Donegal have been there or thereabouts in terms of quality, but even the players would admit we have fallen a bit short.

“That bit of strength-in-depth in the panel may have been weaker than, say, Armagh. They always seemed to be able to spring someone from the bench. And hopefully we could go down that road of being able to pull a few monster substitutes in – particularly now that teams are replacing one-third of the team over a match,” he says.

Against Westmeath, Doherty responded to a squad depleted by an Under-21 championship match against Armagh and long-term injuries by calling in Michael Hegarty and Brendan Devenney at short notice. No promises were made but both travelled and played crucial minutes. It was a slightly unorthodox solution to the problem, but it worked.

The return of Devenney renews one of the great on/off romances between player and county. The Eunan’s man regularly posts leading scores in the local championship, but, despite calling time on his Donegal days several times over, he can never quite bring himself to fully retire – and has never been fully allowed to either. There is always the nagging sense that Devenney has unfinished business with Donegal, and his latest appearance will deepen speculation that he is due for another dramatic comeback.

Doherty laughed when asked about the state of play regarding Devenney.

“That’s a good question. We asked Brendan to travel because we were tight for numbers and it was always going to be a dog-fight, a relegation match. I didn’t think it was a day for young players, I didn’t think I would get anything from them. It was a day for players with experience and I took Brendan and Michael Hegarty and they went into the game at a vital stage and probably did okay, you know. They would be the first to admit that they were a bit ring-rusty.

“So it gives Brendan a chance to get his head around the whole thing and to see if he has anything to offer going into the championship. We will take a week after the league is over and then sit down and pick a championship squad.”

Doherty’s first summer squad may well hold as many surprises for its omissions as its selections. He acted quietly but decisively when presented with his first case of player indiscipline. Three players – Kevin “Wappa” McMenamin, Eamonn McGee and Leon Thompson – were reportedly suspended from the squad for misdemeanours around the St Patrick’s Day celebrations. None has featured since.

Ciarán Bonner was dropped for playing in a club match shortly before Donegal’s visit to Galway. Through the McKenna Cup and early in the league, Bonner had been one of Donegal’s best performers. He came in after half-time against Galway and kicked three fine points – albeit in a match that was largely over.

But he has not started a match either, and it remains to be seen if his breach of discipline will cost him a place in the Doherty’s championship plans. Easy-going as the Glen man has been, he has been quick to eradicate the streak of independence that has always run through the Donegal squad.

“There isn’t much too much I could say: the only thing I would say is that if you have a good spirit going in the squad, then it becomes self-governing. That is the road we have tried to go down. If one person loses, everyone loses. We are trying to get the best out of everyone. We are just trying to point them in the right direction. It is up to themselves after that.”

Doherty made minimal fuss about those upsets and it is significant that the team’s first league wins occurred afterwards.

One of the most encouraging signs in Donegal’s league play has been the return to form of Christy Toye. The coltish St Michael’s man is best remembered for the sensational goal he hit against Armagh in the All-Ireland semi-final in 2003, but in the last few seasons the exuberance seemed to have left his game, dogged by an apparent lack of confidence. This year, he has been flying.

“Having played with Christy for a long time and seen him at training up close, we see how good he is,” Monaghan says. “He is a natural athlete, a real modern-day footballer. And he has carried us over the last couple of games against Tyrone and Westmeath. He was the outstanding player on the field on both occasions. And he has come into a great bit of form.”

Toye has been one of the Donegal players whose career has been affected by the economic recession. Doherty recently made an appeal to business people in the county in the hope of securing work for some of his squad whose jobs have been affected. It is a scenario familiar to Doherty from his playing days: in the 1980s and 1990s, the departure of intercounty quality players for work abroad was common. But for the fact the present economic blitz is global, he might be struggling to keep some of county’s best footballers at home.

But his reaction to the development once again pointed to his practical approach. So far, he has been unfazed by the task of taking on a team whose history has been more turbulent than most. He agrees the game has changed somewhat since he last played for Donegal, but only to a degree.

“It was on my mind to try and take the job and to see if I could do something to make up that bit of a gap. The game has possibly changed, but I do think what happens on the field is still very close to what it was then. Obviously the preparation and the backroom teams is different. I am not sure how much of that is reflected on the field.

“I do think the same principles apply – it is all about fitness and there are different training techniques now, but fitness was always huge. I would be a fairly uncomplicated person anyway, and even though the amount of people in the background has grown, I believe that what happens on the field is fairly similar.”

The criticism of the short hand-passing game that has been regularly directed at Donegal teams as one of the central flaws of their style is one Doherty feels is overstated.

“I don’t think it applies anymore. Maybe a few years ago, we had a slow game and didn’t seem to be going anywhere, but in the past few years I do think the players have tried to inject pace into the game.”

For a county that has rarely been rated outside of the top 10 teams in the past decade, Donegal have a thin championship record. Their last Ulster title was 1992, the last under-21 Ulster title was in 1995. The bright spots have been an Ulster minor title in 2006 and a maiden league victory a year later.

“Yeah, it was a first league title for the county and it was great to get it,” Monaghan says. “But in hindsight it hindered our championship, everyone fell a bit flat. Look, if you didn’t think the team was capable of winning something, you would be wasting your time. I know the same holds true across Ulster. But you must have that belief. There is so much time involved that players aren’t hanging about for the ride.”

By five o’clock tomorrow, Donegal may well become the second team relegated from Division One. After that, the season begins in earnest for John Joe Doherty. Not for the first time, few people know what to expect from Donegal this summer. But one thing is clear: the Glen man is intent on doing things his way.