IN THE mud and the drizzle at Ballybofey yesterday the football occasionally achieved the scorching intensity of summer fare. In the end, these north westerly neighbours justly shared the league points on offer and the results from elsewhere contrived to make it a useful afternoon out for all concerned.

Brian Mullins, in using some 28 players in five league games to date, hasn't Just been experimenting wildly but has been backing up a contention that for the time being at least reputations in Derry count for nothing. Yesterday only five of the team who beat Kildare a week earlier survived in the starting line up.

The components of Mullins Derry machine proved not quite as easily interchangeable as he had hoped. In the end, it was the burnished reputations and polished skills of Joe Brolly and Brian McGilligan which revived the Derry challenge.

Donegal, for their part, have been enjoying a productive winter under the canny managership of PJ McGowan. McGowan's task is perhaps more delicate and intricate then that facing Mullins.

Practically all of Derry's 1993 team is still in tact. The heart of the Donegal team of the year before has been ripped out. The county is home to big expectations rather the big names at the moment.

Yet McGowan has thrived, digging up talent around the county and weathering the blizzard of injuries which have compounded the problems caused by a series of celebrity retirements.

Yesterday Donegal started out by deploying the intricate hand passing style which, when it works, makes them so exciting to watch and, when it doesn't, draws the opprobrium of short tempered supporters. Even as the match progressed and the urgency of the circumstances forced Donegal into a more direct style, they still declined to hoof the ball from defence.

When those long balls started arriving they served principally to underline the most acute problem left facing Brian Mullins.

Paddy Downey of Bellaghy was deployed at full back yesterday. He was game for the challenge but inadequately equipped to cope with Tony Boyle in full flight. As the game wore on it was the excellent James Ruane who first spotted the potential to be derived from Boyle's superiority. Several beautifully flighted long balls from Ruane yielded scores and chances for Boyle.

Derry had started more brightly, however. John Mulholland and Danny Quinn, the Bellaghy pairing, made for a sturdy presence at midfield. Mulholland scored after just 30 seconds, and another one of this season's fresh faces, Sean Martin Lockhart, joined the attack with remarkable confidence to set Seamus Downey up for a point two minutes later.

Donegal discovered they had ample potential when they finally got motoring. Noel Hegarty at centre half back had a fine game. Ruane, operating first at centre forward and later at midfield, wa$ alert and athletic and Boyle of course was as incisive as ever at full forward.

By the 20th minute Donegal had pulled ahead by a point. By half time they were buzzing and went in leading by seven points to three, their superiority having been underlined by a fine score from Noel Hegarty who, having surveyed his options, plumped for an extraordinary, 50 yard point after 25 minutes.

Derry had room for manoeuvre, however. Donegal stretched their lead to five points early in the second half but then a series of attacks broke down as they sought to stretch their modest advantage into something truly memorable.

Ten minutes into the half Brian Mullins acted decisively, ending Noel Hegarty's rampaging influence and providing some bright creativity by introducing Joe Brolly at centre forward.

Brolly fizzed immediately, combining with Seamus Downey to create a spurned goal chance for Danny Quinn, then scoring a fine point from a difficult free taken from the hands. He added another point before he had been five minutes on the field.

A couple of years ago, with a little less meat on him and slightly less confidence about him, Brolly would have seemed an unlikely choice as centre forward. Yesterday, however, he staked a strong claim for selection as a cerebral free moving pivot of the attack. Derry's last score from play. with 19 minutes left saw Brolly win the ball around midfield and place a beautiful, 30 yard pass into the path of Eamon Burns who flicked to Karl Diamond for one of the scores of the game.

That score of Diamond's tied the sides. at nine points apiece. Tony Boyle and Eamon Burns exchanged free kicks to finish the scoring with IS minutes left to play.

But those final 15 minutes were arguably the best of the afternoon. The play throbbed with intensity and the match had the feel of hanging on a knife edge.

Yet in that white hot period both managers will have learned more about who they will be sending to the battle front come the summer