GAA - Fitness is Derry's No. 1 priority

Fitness is Derry’s number one priority

Steven Doherty reports from Crossmaglen

DERRY manager Damian Barton believes that fitness is the key if the Oak Leaf county is to compete with the best teams in Ulster. Fresh from his first game in charge – a defeat to a well-oiled Tyrone side in the O’Fiaich Cup, Barton was clearly disappointed by his side’s display, but despite handing debuts to a number of new recruits made no excuses after witnessing his first Derry side fall to an eleven point defeat. “We still have to look at getting a wee bit fitter” Barton told the County Derry Post. “I’m not talking about half a dozen, I’m talking about the collective. You need 15, 18, 20 players that can all cover ground at pace. And that’s what beat us ultimately. Our handling was poor, our decision making. I think once you go on to the back foot your confidence goes a bit as well at this level. “I thought our full back line was OK once we got to grips with things. You can’t mark from behind and they adjusted and it’s good to see that players can do that and certainly they tied up their full forward line. But we were too porous down the middle in terms of midfield their half backs were pushing forward. Whenever you have weight of numbers coming at you it’s very, very hard to defend. Again, we’ll look at where we are. A lot of that is down to fitness. That’s our number one priority to match the pace of that Tyrone team. And not just them – the Monaghans of this world as well. “There was a whole lot of things” he continued. “We didn’t have any stand out leaders there once we were on the back foot. That’s the trait of a good team that have leaders that can dig in, hold possession, use possession, try and turn the momentum a bit. Morgan came in and kicked three or four frees – that’s a nice luxury to have.” Ballinscreen man Dermot McBride, vice captain last year, captained Barton’s first Derry select but the Newbridge man admitted that as he is still getting to know the players he has yet to decide who skippers the county in 2016. “I don’t know. Dermot took the toss today. He’s a very quiet, humble person. He leads by example in terms of his commitment, etc.. I don’t really know the boys well enough, but you can see different qualities coming through. At the end of the day it’s a bit of a cliché but everybody has to be a captain. It goes back to the point I was making about leaders. Its early but I said to the boys ‘people talk about character’ but there’s no point in talking about character in May or June. When you get a kick up the backside, this is where character comes in. So, we’ll dig in. We’ll move forward.” Opponents Tyrone arrived at Crossmaglen on Sunday with just four substitutes available to Micky Harte. By contrast it took two changing rooms to house the Derry contingent of players, with Barton stating that he is currently working with as many as 49 players. He expects to whittle the squad down before the McKenna Cup, but in the meantime is more than happy to work with as many players as possible who are committed to the Derry cause. “We have good chemistry. The boys are enjoying each other’s company. They’re enjoying training together. The hard thing of course is having to split that up to 35, possibly 40. The McKenna Cup’s coming and that’s our first game. It will be totally unfair to drop somebody on the basis of what? Even with one or two games it’s a very unfair thing to do as well. So we need football, and football gets you fitter quite obviously. We’ve a couple of options but again you can’t beat playing football and that was obvious here today.” Quizzed on county champions Slaughtneil’s players, a few of whom were at the game to spectate, Barton expects them to be all back playing for Derry soon. Among those players, the Derry manager is hoping to see an exciting new face in Christopher Bradley and veteran Patsy Bradley to both feature at some stage in the new campaign. “They are on the periphery and they’ve just started to come back in. He’s (Patsy Bradley) there. I know Patsy from experience as well. Patsy is a tremendous fellow with great qualities and it would be unfair not to have those qualities, being an infectious thing within the group. He will be there. But you know the history of Patsy’s injuries – he needs a couple of months. If he makes it he makes it. If he doesn’t, you know from Patsy’s point of view, it won’t be from not trying. (Sammy) is coming. It’s a different environment and it’s a big step up. He’s one of the most natural footballers in the county. There are a couple of options we’re looking at. It’s early but it was a good work out today.”