McEniff points to Armagh lesson

When Brian McEniff was landed with, rather than handed, the job as Donegal football manager, 10 years after delivering the county their first All-Ireland, he found himself having to go back to basics. As it turned out it was Armagh that provided the most important lesson. Now McEniff gets to test its value against the same opposition in Sunday's Ulster final at Croke Park.

It was late December 2002 when McEniff finally agreed to take the Donegal hot seat, only because no one else had the nerve to touch it. It meant surrendering his post as chairman of the county board, and revisiting the cold, lonely sidelines at the dawn of another National League. After losing heavily to Galway and Dublin, his crumbling Donegal team entertained Armagh at Ballybofey.

"Just a few months before in the All-Ireland semi-final and final I cheered my heart out for Armagh," recalled McEniff in Dublin yesterday. "All of a sudden I'm standing there playing against them, and only then did I realise the intensity of the game. To be honest I just wasn't up to speed.

"How Armagh were working so hard off the ball to regain possession. Having been out of the game for 10 years that was the first time I realised where it was now at. Watching as a spectator in Croke Park I didn't appreciate the way the game was being played. So we had long, hard lessons to learn from that. And it was only this October and November that we had time to address those problems."

Despite that rushed preparations going into last year's championship, Donegal nearly caused the upset of the summer, falling to Armagh's late goal in the All-Ireland semi-final.

A full winter of weight training and other strength work has chiselled a different Donegal team. They also had a rugby union coach from Wales with them for a number of weeks. Yet McEniff won't emphasise the word physical.

"That's not because we want to get physical. It's because of the sort of game that's being played out there, and you have to cope with it. And I think we are better equipped to take the physical contact now than we were 12 months ago. So I am very pleased with the progress, especially that we got such a good run at it this year.

"And looking back at the semi-final with Armagh last year, it was a game we could have won. But maybe not should have won. Armagh owned a lot more possession that we did. But we are a better side this year."

Where that leaves Armagh, the masters of the physical game, remains to be seem. Their manager, Joe Kernan, is concerned only about winning back the Anglo-Celt Cup, not how he must win it back.

"After last year's defeat in the final, we all said we wanted to give it one more go. And that meant being in the Ulster final again. But then every team in the country makes those decisions. Only a few teams are lucky enough to get there. To win on Sunday though we'll have to perform better than we did at any time this year so far."

Sunday's game was originally billed as the likely meeting of Armagh and Tyrone - or the repeat of last year's All-Ireland. Kernan doesn't lament the change of headline nor even care if he ever gets to meet Tyrone again. "I would never prepare for a team we mightn't meet. I went to the Ulster semi-final thinking only about winning there. And I just don't know how well Tyrone will fare with being beaten. I thought last Saturday they played well, and their next outing, against Galway, will be a real test. But I'm still not thinking about them or anyone else at this particular time."

Kernan is even less concerned about the labels put on his team. Old-timers, Croke Park veterans, trying to win one more for the road: "The average of this 30-man panel is 25. So I suppose that makes them fairly old alright."

McEniff also plays down any significance of the game's change of billing: "It sounded like it would be Tyrone against Armagh, and that was a slight incentive, maybe. But we were playing the All-Ireland champions. That was enough motivation."

Kernan is happy to travel to GAA headquarters, welcoming the opportunity for the greater attendance. But not McEniff: "No, as an Ulster man I would sooner play my final in Ulster. But the players would prefer to play it in Croke Park, and that's all that matters."