IN his own head, Niall Morgan thought he was the finished article at 21-years-old. On the team bus to Ballybofey to face Donegal in the 2013 Ulster Championship, Tyrone’s brash new goalkeeper ignored the words of wisdom from Pascal McConnell.
‘Are you ready for this, Niall? This is going to be different,’ said the wily McConnell.
Morgan was Gaelic football’s bright young thing.
Earlier that season he saved a Michael Murphy penalty, scored three points and was awarded man-of-the-match against the same opposition.
“Everybody did a lying year under Mickey [Harte] unless you were really special,” Morgan told The Irish News in 2021.
“I went straight in thinking: “I’m really special’ - but I was wrong!”
Paddy Crozier once referred to Ballybofey as playing in the “belly of the dragon”.
Donegal were in ambush position for months and duly took Tyrone’s scalp that day.
Morgan had a disastrous Ulster Championship debut. He scuffed a few placed balls early in the match and when he eventually converted one, the Edendork man cupped his ears to the Donegal crowd.
Everyone’s reaction that day was: What are you doing, man?
“First round of the Championship, five missed free-kicks, the whole thing went to pot,” Morgan ruefully grinned.
“I cupped my ears for the one that I did score and I made a fool out of myself.”
Leaving MacCumhaill Park, I gave Morgan two or three years, max, before he’d become a mere footnote in the history of Tyrone GAA.
In 2024, the Allstar goalkeeper is still going strong for the Red Hands, still pursuing excellence every time he plays.
At 32, there is no sign of slippage in his displays. If anything, he’s playing at the absolute zenith of his powers.
The National Football League season is only five games old, but Morgan has already shoe-horned in a highlights reel that would be career-long for others.
Morgan is a rare breed, undaunted to go against the GAA grain if the mood takes him.
In an era when interviewing a Gaelic footballer or hurler before a big Championship game has become an accepted anathema at inter-county level, Morgan invited me to his house a week out from Tyrone’s 2021 Ulster final against Donegal.
Morgan is a GAA press officer’s nightmare. For this wasn’t what they were taught at the last PRO workshop in Croke Park, or the one before that.
That kind of behaviour is unheard of these days where press officers and managers keep players at a safe distance from reporters for fear of contamination.
Recently, I met Danny Hughes, the 2010 Down Allstar footballer, in Newry for a chat.
During his playing days, Danny was an amiable and amenable character in his dealings with the press.
Reflecting on insulating players, Hughes was totally mystified.
“For the life of me, I don’t understand why any manager would protect their players from the media,” he said.
“[I think] They do it because they believe they’re getting an edge on the opposition, and they’re not getting an edge on the opposition.
“I was in changing rooms where managers told you: ‘Do not talk to the press’ – and they were talking to the press! Mental. It makes no sense.
“You look at every GAA player out there: what do they want to do? They want to play at inter-county level. They want to earn a few pound, enjoy their life.
“Maybe they want to open a business that allows them the flexibility to go and play football. If they can’t use their own bar, restaurant or whatever the business is, what’s the point?”
This column isn’t written as an ode to Niall Morgan because he’s accessible to the media; it’s written because he’s the best goalkeeper playing the game.
I’ve covered two of Tyrone’s Division One games this season – Roscommon and Mayo – and on both occasions Morgan was magnificent.
Tyrone are in a weird head space right now. They have a tranche of players being road-tested to determine if they are of Championship standard.
It’s still early days for many of them but in that leadership vacuum, Morgan has grown in stature.
Some of the things he did in that gutsy opening win over Roscommon and the telepathic axis for seeking out Darragh Canavan were outstanding.
With Roscommon in search of a goal towards the end, Donie Smith sent in a ‘Hail Mary’.
With Morgan committed, everybody expected him to fist it away. Instead he made an unbelievable catch and in doing so safeguarded the win for Tyrone.
“If you can get two hands on the ball, you catch it!” he said afterwards.
Whether it’s out of necessity and trying to assist the less experienced players in this Tyrone team or he’s simply evolving his game to a whole new level – or a combination of the two – the Allstar goalkeeper has never been more important to the Tyrone cause.
Take the Galway game - an encounter where Tyrone made too many bad decisions in the attacking third – Morgan’s influence was immense.
With his first touch out the field in the 10th minute – where Morgan is inclined to spend more time than between the sticks – he popped the ball into Ciaran Daly’s arms to win a ‘mark’.
Six minutes later, he cut across the ball and glided it into Lorcan McGarrity for another ‘mark’.
He continued to sit at the defensive base of the Tyrone attack.
In the 28th minute, he was involved in an attacking move three times which culminated in him breaking at speed to point and tie the game up at 0-4 apiece.
He then converted a ‘45 in first-half stoppage time and in the second half he had a dozen touches inside Galway’s half of the field.
It was only in the 72nd minute, the visitors made a tactical foul on Tyrone’s playmaking goalkeeper.
While some top GAA goalkeepers have been Stateside and displaying their transferrable skills in the NFL Combine, the best of the lot is pursuing excellence on rainy nights in Omagh and taking the art of goalkeeping to a level we didn’t know existed.