O’Neills Tyrone SFC final: Trillick v Errigal Ciaran (Sunday, 4pm, Healy Park)
EXACTLY sixteen minutes before throw-in, news was confirmed to the press box.
‘Number 22, Mark Kavanagh, replaces number 15, Darragh Canavan’.
And with it changed the entire premise of the 2019 final between Errigal Ciaran and Trillick.
Five years on, the pre-match discussion will centre on one thing and one thing only. Darragh’s shoulder.
Then, he was a boy with potential. Now he’s a man of ability that determines the outcome of so many of the games he now plays in.
If he plays there’s no guarantee that Errigal but if he doesn’t, it would be very difficult to nail your colours to any other mast than a Trillick victory.
And we know what a Trillick victory means in terms of the overall history of Tyrone football.
Every year we wish away this thing about nobody winning back-to-back for two decades, just so that we don’t have to keep repeating it and eating up precious ink.
It’s taken as the ultimate vindication of Tyrone’s knockout system but the real worth it if stretches right back over a century.
Tyrone is the only county in Ireland where no club has ever bettered a three-in-a-row in senior football.
The nature of the last 20 years would lead you to argue it’ll be a while yet until that changes.
Trillick have had a strange luxury since 2015. They’ve won three county titles, played in four finals and seven semis, yet still get to be seen as underdogs a lot of the time. The same has happened with Naomh Conaill up in Donegal.
The case in point was this year’s semi-final. Many, many observers fancied Dungannon to take the crown off them.
Armed with that knowledge, Trillick brought a show of strength and wiped the floor, winning by ten points.
Having slotted Mattie Donnelly and Michael Gallagher back into the team after both missed last year’s success, they’re stronger on paper than when they saw off Errigal twelve months ago.
The Ballygawley men still haven’t had Cormac Quinn to call upon with a groin injury but Niall Kelly’s return has strengthened them a bit at the back.
But it’s still there that their problems lie. Even when they won Tyrone two years ago and gave Glen absolute hell at times in an epic Ulster Club clash in Celtic Park, it was the way they struggled without the ball that undermined them.
Clonoe and Killyclogher both came very close to punishing it. One took them to a replay, the other level in stoppage time before Peter Harte unleashed a wonderscore to win it.
Pomeroy had been second best by a distance in the opening round but stayed alive by virtue of two goals off the high ball.
That laid a template that Clonoe sought to capitalise on. Not only did they feel they could get at Errigal in the air, but the fact Errigal knew it too meant they had to rob Peter to pay Paul.
Times they had Ben McDonnell and Joe Oguz standing at full-back trying to protect against it, which takes away from their attacking game.
Still it paid dividends for Clonoe. They weren’t fancied in the slightest. They not took Errigal to a replay but right down the stretch the second night as well.
Against Killyclogher they looked more secure and comfortable but got hit by a late rally that began with a phantom penalty. Their six-point lead got wiped out and they found themselves level after 63 minutes.
Despite being flawed defensively, Errigal will beat most teams because they’re so good on the ball.
The irony in it is that Trillick are the one team that won’t alter their own way of playing in favour of an aerial lottery.
You might occasionally see Ryan or Liam Gray drift to the edge of the square but by and large, the system will be the system.
In Odhran Robinson, Errigal do have a big goalscoring threat of their own. He has a habit of landing majors in big games. His battle with Peter McCaughey will be an interesting one.
Last year they had Daire Gallagher on Darragh Canavan and Daniel Donnelly back on Ruairi, with Rory Brennan doing his traditional tagging job on Peter Harte.
Yet for all of it, it was a fortunate goal before half-time that gave Trillick daylight and they still needed extra-time to get their hands on the trophy.
There will be, as ever, nothing to separate the sides. All the things discussed above are what might create the one or two-point margin between two sides that, as Tyrone’s first repeat finalists since Errigal and Killyclogher in 2002/03, can justifiably claim to be the best two teams in the land.
If Darragh plays, and he’s fit to do even a fraction of his damage, then Errigal might enjoy a rare day in underdog status.
But even if he is fit, how do you back against a Trillick team that has lost by more than a point in championship football just once since 2016, a team that are stronger than last year’s?
You just can’t.