HAVING lived the dream, Cavan’s alarm went off just before 7pm last night. Tyrone in Healy Park to begin the defence of their title. Wakey, wakey.
As their own native Oliver Galligan, the Ulster Council president, left the Breffni ball in the bowl until last, they knew their fate before it was sealed. Last year’s levels will need to be found again from the off.
For Feargal Logan and Brian Dooher, there’s a small bit of symmetry. Their first game in charge of Tyrone U21s, some seven years ago, was against Cavan. The men in blue would wipe the floor on the way to their third of four successive Ulster titles at the grade, of which the fruit was borne last winter.
On the cut-throat side of the draw, the winners of that tie will potentially face Donegal in the semi-final, providing Declan Bonner’s men wade through their opening two tests.
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Being drawn in the preliminary round has been no huge barrier to them in the past, just as it wasn’t to Cavan last year, but they might still have wished it a bit easier.
Down in Newry is first up, with the winners facing Derry. If that is Donegal, it will take place in Ballybofey, whereas Down v Derry would be in Celtic Park.
There will have been quiet contentment on the parts of Monaghan and Armagh, who looks like each other’s most significant obstacle on the path to the final.
Remarkably, Armagh and Antrim will meet in Ulster for the first time since 1982. Enda McGinley was a most unconcerned one-year-old. For two teams in such a small network to go just short of 40 years without bumping into each other is one of the strangest quirks of provincial fate.
The same cannot be said of Monaghan and Fermanagh, who can’t turn a corner without nodding at each other. This will be a fourth run-in since 2017, although the landscapes do feel slightly different.
It will all run from the weekend of June 26/27 until the final, most likely on the first day of August.
Meanwhile, Connacht secretary John Prenty has defended his province’s football Championship draw and says no consideration has been given to redoing it.
The draw, which was broadcast live on RTÉ on Monday evening, showed Connacht chairman John Murphy taking a canister containing one team from the bowl in front of him before putting it back and choosing another.
That happened at the segment where the team was being drawn to play the winners of Mayo v Sligo. Leitrim were the team pulled out and shown to the camera, leaving Galway and Roscommon to face each other on the other side.
The incident caused a furore on social media, with former Leitrim player Emlyn Mulligan tweeting a video of it.
Contacted by The Irish News yesterday, Connacht secretary Prenty said that there were “no plans to redo it, the draw will be standing” before attempting to outline what happened.
“I think what happened was that probably the chairman went ahead of Marty [Morrissey],” he added.
“Marty was still talking when the chairman had taken the [canister], so he left it back down again when Marty was still talking, that’s what happened.”
Asked if he understood how it looked, Prenty replied: “I can, yeah. But it’s impossible to know what’s in the canisters, they were shifted around, there are several rehearsals and they were kept moving from canister to canister, I’m sure.
“We’re not doing a redraw. It was absolutely above board, we’re fully confident what the chairman did, there was nothing underhand and we’re 100 per cent behind what he did.”
The incident materially changed the nature of the draw, leaving Mayo with a much easier run to a Connacht final through what will now be Sligo and Leitrim, instead of facing either Galway or Roscommon in a semi-final.
When it was put to Prenty that the draw had been possibly altered by it, he said: “Yeah but he [Murphy] was just ahead of the draw. What he did wasn’t part of the draw, so he put it back in again. That’s the way it materialised.
“We’ve had no complaints from any of the counties… We’re 100 per cent confident the draw is above board.”
2021 Ulster SFC
Preliminary round
Down v Donegal
Quarter-finals
Derry v Down / Donegal
Armagh v Antrim
Monaghan v Fermanagh
Tyrone v Cavan
