PAUL Donaghy side-stepped ‘the Tyrone question’ more easily than he avoided Donaghmore defenders on Sunday evening in Pomeroy.
Yet the fact that the Dungannon Clarke’s forward still finished as top scorer on 1-4 despite a fine performance from opposition full-back Ben Hughes and the presence of sweeper Philip Donnelly indicates why the issue of county involvement will continue to be raised.
Able to score off either foot, from play and from frees, strong, quick, good in the air, Donaghy has all the attributes required of a forward. Against Donaghmore, he put away the match-winning penalty in injury time with absolute assurance, scored three frees – two of them against a strong wind – and sent over a superb point from play.
Asked if he’d be happy to hear from the new Tyrone manager – with Malachy O’Rourke expected to succeed the duo of Brian Dooher and Feargal Logan – Donaghy replied:
“Ach, I’d just be focussing on Dungannon here for now anyway – we still have the league campaign after this, the league semi-final after the championship, so that’s what we’ll be focussing on.”
Red Hand fans might hang their hopes on those two words ‘for now’, holding out the possibility that Donaghy might return to county colours in 2025.
He was called up by Dooher and Logan in 2021 after inspiring the Clarke’s to a surprise county title in 2020, ending a 64-year wait for the Dungannon club.
However, despite his undoubted ability, Donaghy was never able to nail down a regular starting slot with Tyrone and left the county senior set-up after the 2022 league but before that year’s championship commenced.
He showed his worth yet again last season, collecting the Patsy Forbes Top Scorer award for a tally of 1-21 in the Tyrone SFC, despite Dungannon losing out in the semi-finals to eventual champions Trillick. He’d also won that award in 2020 when the Clarke’s stunned Trillick by coming back to win the trophy on penalties.
Donaghy acknowledged that the Clarke’s sights are set on regaining the O’Neill Cup: “We know how competitive it is, but since we won it we’d give ourselves a good chance every year.”
Yet although they beat neighbours Donaghmore in Pomeroy on Sunday evening by 2-9 to 1-9, that victory was only thanks to that injury-time penalty converted by Donaghy, who knows that their manager will expect better in the quarter-finals against Loughmacrory:
“We’re definitely disappointed with how we played. No doubt James [Slater] will be angry with us at training during the week – but it’s about getting over the line sometimes.”
Dungannon did that only after Donaghy’s successful spot-kick brought his tally to 1-4. Although he confidently converted the penalty, he said there was an element of luck involved:
“It’s a hard decision. I knew Lorcan [Quinn, the Donaghmore goalkeeper] is a confident fella, he was going to take a gamble one way or the other, so maybe down the middle was the best way to go.”
The Clarke’s had seemed to be cruising in the first half when they led by 1-5 to 0-2 against the wind, but the match changed when Donaghmore netted shortly before half-time.
“We gave them a silly goal and let them back into the game,” said Donaghy. “We were really disappointed with ourselves at half-time, but we’ve been in that position numerous times down the years and knew what we had to do.
“We didn’t exactly carry out our game-plan in the second half, we were nervy – I myself and others missed a couple of chances, we gave away silly possession, but we had the composure in the end, and the legs coming off the bench, and that really stood to us… It takes more than 15 men to win a Championship and thank God we have a really deep squad.”
Donaghy was relieved to see off a Donaghmore side packed with underage winners, and pointed to the older heads who’d helped Dungannon through:
“We maybe have a few more experienced boys, a better profile for senior football at the minute, but their young talent showed. If they’d taken another couple of their chances it could have been them victorious.
“We have leaders all over the field, Paudie [McNulty] has led us throughout the years, Paddy [Quinn], Kevy [Barker] is a new leader in the team, and it’s great to have those guys.”
Tyrone may feel it would be great to have Paul Donaghy back with them.