Brian McIver breathed a sigh of relief after Derry edged out Down in the first round of the Ulster SFC on Sunday, but was unable to solve one of the conundrums in game. Namely, why do some teams struggle when faced with the prospect of playing 14 men following a dismissal?
The Oak Leafers, who recorded a 0-12 to 0-11 victory against Down, led by 0-08 to 0-05 at the interval and enjoyed a numerical advantage when Conall McGovern was shown a straight red for an apparent strike on Enda Lynn immediately after the restart.
However, the dismissal appeared to act as a catalyst to the Mourne men, who were heading for a draw before Eoin Bradley tapped over a late winner.
“We played good football in the first half, good pace, intensity, and Down were the better side for a good percentage of the second half, despite the fact that our defence played very, very well,” Derry boss McIver told RTÉ Sport.
“The sending of really seemed to throw us and we went into our shell as opposed to pushing on. But these things have happened before and somebody, someday will come up with an explanation as to why whenever you go a man up, you change the way you play.
“I’ve been trying to rack my brain to work that out. This is not the first time that I’ve encountered this, I’ve seen it very often in the past. The team that goes a man down suddenly plays with far greater fizz and intensity, and the team that has the extra man thinks that they must use that extra player and everything has to be done short.
“There has to be some young grad student out there that could write a thesis, if he ever managed to work this out.”
“I said to one of the selectors that this will not help us in any shape or form, and so it proved" - Brian McIver on his reaction to the dismissal of Down's Conall McGovern
McIver was more certain in his appraisal of the sending of McGovern, saying: “I saw the sending off incident for the first time last night and I would have to say that it was a very harsh sending off.
“Enda Lynn is not a player that goes down cheaply, so he got some contact around the eye, but there was nothing malicious.”
A prescient McIver feared the worst when Down were reduced to 14 men, saying: “I said to one of the selectors that this will not help us in any shape or form, and so it proved.
“We started to do everything at a slower pace than we had been doing it in the first half.
“At 15 against 15 we were creating chances and creating good chances, and all of a sudden we almost went into our shell.”
While the quality of fare on show on Foyleside garnered some criticism, McIver believes it may have been unwarranted.
“It’s a very often-used phrase, but it was a typical Ulster championship game, that’s exactly what it was. Very competitive, every ball contested, loads of mistakes.
“I don’t think too many people left Celtic Park thinking that it Twas a brilliant game of flowing football, but the other side of it is that nobody left before the final whistle.
“It was tense and tight and nervy, and that is just so typical of the nature of Ulster championship games.
“Whether you’re talking about club level or county level, one of the most difficult rounds in championship football, traditionally, has always been the first round because there is that element of you move from playing league football, or in the case of the county side, there is a fair break from when they actually have played together in a competitive way.
“It’s easy to sit on a panel and say this that and the other.”
“I’ve spent my time as a spectator sitting up in the stand watching games, and I have to say in all that time, I’ve never made a mistake.
“I have a 100% record up in the stand!”
“There were a lot of positives from the game from our perspective yesterday,” McIver added.
“The one thing we’ll try to ensure is that when we are playing the way that we want to play, that we sustain that.
When we went four points up after half-time, we really should have pushed on and we didn’t do that, and it’s something which we’ll be definitely working on trying to address before the semi-final, whether it Armagh or Donegal, in three weeks’ time.
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