Limavady Chronicle - Sports - Dismal Derry brushed aside

Sports

Dismal Derry brushed aside

Thursday, 22 July 2010

Dismal Derry brushed aside thumbnail The Derry panel.

Derry................1-9
Kildare............2-17
A DERRY fan summed up the occasion when he trudged dejectedly from Celtic Park: 'I have been following them for forty years and that was the worst championship performance I have ever seen from our county'.
Few could argue with his assertion as the bigger, stronger and fitter looking visitors brushed aside a weak Derry challenge on a day when it all started so well.
Five points up in six minutes it looked so good for the Oak Leaf boys but that was as good as it got. With John Doyle and Eamonn Callaghan given the freedom of the City by the Derry defence it all began to come good for Kieran McGeeney's side and for the rest of the game they outscored Derry by 2-17 to 0-7.
In the last ten minutes it was painful to watch as the visitors scored at will against a disorganised and dispirited home team that was suffering their fourth home defeat at Celtic Park this season. This equalled the number of defeats they had suffered there in the twenty previous seasons.
Perhaps those wins over Leinster lightweights Carlow and Westmeath papered over the cracks. On the evidence of this game the current Derry squad will face many more hard days. It was simply amazing that inter county players were unable to hold they ball under little or no pressure and that some were unable to pass the ball accurately for a matter of feet.
No doubt manager Damien Cassidy and his selectors will be having a hard look at the situation and to brutally honest they will be under a lot of pressure after this display and the one against Armagh in the Ulster championship. Certainly they had injury problems but there can be no excuse for some of the schoolboy errors that we saw on Saturday.
It is easy to blame the manager after a defeat but four wins out of eleven games and relegation to Division Two is not a good record. To be fair there is probably not an overdose of talent in the county and there are too many light weight players but small counties like Derry need all the best players in their panel and that is not happening at present. A crowd of around three thousand with quite a number from Kildare attended the game and apart from a swirling breeze conditions were pretty good. That blistering start lifted Derry hearts but that was soon replaced by anxiety as Kildare playing intelligently began to expose the Derry weaknesses and after that 1-2 blast the next score did not come until nineteen minutes later and by that time Kildare led by Johnny Doyle who rarely touched the ball in previous games against Derry had reeled off seven points.
Doyle seemed to have all the time in the world to do what he liked and Emmett Bolton was pushing forward repeatedly from the right half back position and no one was chasing back to put him under pressure.
In the second half Eamonn Callaghan not a noted scorer hit 1-4 with the Derry defence absent without leave. In a pre match interview Damien Cassidy suggested that this game would give Derry a measure of where they were at. The answer was there for all to see!
Despite all their shortcomings Derry were just four points in arrears going into the last ten minutes but the visitors then took firm control to hit 2-3 and give Derry one of the heaviest championship defeats in years. Four years ago in a similar situation Kildare came to Celtic Park but Derry hammered them by 1-17 to 0-11. How things have changed!
Very few Derry players matched the opposition on the day. Kevin McGuckin strove manfully at full back with little support apart from a couple of good interceptions by Dermot McBride. The half back was very poor with only Barry McGoldrick making much impression. Joe Diver started well at midfield but took a knock on the leg and it took him some time to recover. It was surprising that he was replaced in the final quarter s he was one of the few Derry players who could match Kildare physically.
Mark Lynch was the only Derry forward to make a real impact but all credit to Eoin Bradley for despite things not going well for him he still managed to score three points from play. Cathal McKeever worked hard but generally there was little cohesion up front. Patsy Bradley came off the bench and made an impact late on.