This time last year I wrote a column in advance of the Ulster first round clash between Derry and Donegal which lauded Derry for landing a NFL Division 1 title under the guidance of Mickey Harte and how they were primed to push on further. The article looked at how fluid Derry were from an attacking sense and their clarity around game understanding and execution.
The great unknown at that time was Donegal after a spell in Division 2, where they were able to experiment at their leisure. Then, bang − a Jim McGuinness masterclass in Celtic Park saw Donegal totally dismantle Derry with Shaun Patton’s kickouts and fast transitions from play leading to four goals and a comfortable win. It was a result that Derry never recovered from and that allowed Donegal to push on and land an Ulster title.
This time around as the teams prepare for the Ulster SFC opener, everything has changed; Mickey Harte is gone, Michael Murphy is back, Derry have been relegated, Donegal were primed for a league final before apparently pulling up and, of course, there is a new game in town with the FRC rule enhancements.
Specific objectives
Donegal attacked the league with very specific objectives throughout and it seems that the opposition on a given day − along with avoiding a visit to Croke Park for the final − provided focus at different stages.
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In their first game, they beat Dublin 0-20 to 0-16 in Ballybofey. Next up, a visit to Kerry, where they secured a 0-23 to 1-18 victory. Across these two games and the Armagh game they drew a blank in terms of goals, only registering two across all seven league games. As the new rules bed in and the two-point shot strategies become more prevalent and detailed, it is likely that Donegal will make use of the two-pointer more, but they are also low in terms of two-point scores, with just five across the three key wins against Dublin, Kerry and Armagh.
[ Championship 2025: How the provincial football championships are shaping upOpens in new window ]
Over the course of the 2024 championship and 2025 league, Donegal have consistently been a team who have had an above-average rate of shots from team possessions. They get shots off at a consistent rate and rarely get needlessly turned over by the opposition. It was evident last year that McGuinness played his full hand early. He needed to in order to win an Ulster title, developing much-needed belief in the camp, but with the return of a number of players for 2025, they have more options and a bank of work complete, where they may be holding some tactical ploys back until absolutely needed.
Next up the All-Ireland champions came to Ballybofey and were dismantled 0-21 to 1-10. This game was very much in the balance, 0-13 to 1-7, when the return of Murphy turned the game on it’s head.
The Murphy factor
Murphy’s introduction in the 45th minute saw Aidan Forker red carded almost straight away for an altercation with the Glenswilly man. After this, Murphy immediately won a miscued Armagh kickout and pointed with his left after two solos with his right, and the stands erupted.
He added another point off his right from play and another from a free. He linked passes on the outside of the Armagh defensive system, with an 100 per cent completion rate. Then he won a mark from a Patton kickout and set up Odhran Doherty for a point. The only blot of any description was one wide from play, and as the hooter blared in Ballybofey, it was Murphy in possession of the ball. Folk hero impact doesn’t have a measurement.
A bizarre game with Galway in Salthill was up next in which the hosts raced into a 0-17 to 0-1 half-time advantage due to extreme winds and an issues with new rules around black/red cards and the severity of the punishment (or lack thereof) that has since been amended. Galway goalkeeper Conor Flaherty also had a lot of involvements in 12 v 11 phases in this game, facilitating overlaps and gaps − again this rule has changed.
So there are elements we can safely ignore from the game but one interesting aspect of the game was Brendan McCole’s man-marking of Shane Walsh in the two-point shooting zone. This is a very different type of marking to the man marking that would previously have occurred in and around a congested D, and definitely something to watch as the summer develops. Anyway, with three wins from four games at this point for Donegal and their objectives for the league achieved, the focus was switched to Ulster and Sam.
Derry’s over-reliance
What of Derry? Their star has certainly fallen and they seem to be lacking the clear tactical identity which was present when landing back-to-back Ulster titles in 2022 and 2023. Derry have an unhealthy reliance on the scoring threats of Shane McGuigan and Conor Glass, who scored 1-34 and 3-18 respectively in the league. Both players ended up in the top six of overall scorers in Division 1.
This amounted to 47 per cent share of their total scores in the league. This is very concerning for Paddy Tally, who will be worried where the scores are going to come from, as there is a high likelihood that McCole will be detailed to man-mark McGuigan and the Donegal collective defensive structure will keep Glass on the outskirts.
At the other end of the field, Derry are leaking goals at a worrying rate. They conceded 18 across the league campaign, the highest across all four divisions. The retirement of Chrissy McKaigue has been a serious blow in this area of the field for presence alone.
The nature of the three late goals against Kerry will have had a huge psychological effect on the group considering the performance they’d put together up to the dying minutes. The three goals were each concerning for different reasons − Paul Geaney cleanly caught a high ball that dropped short; Donal O’Sullivan finished to the net after a high Kerry turnover; and Geaney again finished to the net after a Neil McNicholl miscue from a kickout.
Kickout problems
The teams faced each other in the league on March 2nd, but Donegal didn’t want to allow Derry a test run in Ballybofey, with the game being played in Ballyshannon. Derry looked to be in control of the game as they led 1-19 to 0-15 as the clock hit 60 minutes.
This is perhaps where the scoreboard can lie a little as the shot count was 29 to 23 in favour of Donegal at that point. Donegal had a return of 0.52 points per shot to Derry’s 0.96 points per shot. The final 10 minutes saw Donegal outscore Derry 1-7 to no reply − further clutch time damage for the Oak Leaf county.
Donegal added nine more shots in the closing 10 minutes, and this was primarily fuelled by dominating the Derry long kickout, as Donegal secured six from eight in the final stages. You would also have to question Derry’s tactic of allowing Donegal to have their own short kickout given their ability to convert those possessions into a shot. Of the 43 possessions Donegal had in the game, only on six occasions did they fail to get a shot off. Derry also showed excellent productivity, living off scraps possession wise but they cannot expect that Donegal will be so wasteful in Ballybofey this week.
The relevance of this game to what ultimately happens in the championship could be minimal. Expect Derry to force Patton to the contest more, even though there is the danger of losing that breaking-ball zone. Neither team managed a turnover in their attacking half during the league encounter, expect a bit more of this considering the goalkeeper outlet is now unavailable.
Donegal to win while remaining in fourth gear and with a lot more to come as the ground hardens.
Paul O’Brien is a performance analyst with The Performance Process (twitter.com/NoPlanBGAA).
