Allianz Football League Division One, round three
Donegal v Armagh (Sunday, Páirc Seán MacCumhaill Park, 3.45pm, live on TG4)
WITH ten minutes to play in Killarney last weekend, the walls were just starting to close in on Donegal.
Kerry were back within three and off a nabbed kickout, Seanie O’Shea instinctively spotted that Paudie Clifford had ghosted goalside of the white shirts.
O’Shea floated a beautiful ball over the top. Shaun Patton didn’t hesitate. Like the soccer goalkeeper he once was, he came to meet it, got above Clifford and punched clear. Forty seconds later, Peadar Mogan had pushed Donegal four clear.
On the idea of Michael Murphy wearing the number one jersey, they have been coy.
Asked himself after their opening round win over Dublin, Patton just said: “Well, we’ll see… we’ll see. It’s hard to know what’s going to happen.”
Maybe the rumour has suited them. Are they hoodwinking everyone, distracting teams from planning how to deal with him if and when he shows up in his trademark number 14?
Or is the best goalkeeper off a tee in Ireland really going to lose his place in summer or get taken off in games because Murphy would add more to their attacking game?
There is a school, mostly but not all within Armagh, that believes Blaine Hughes should be the reigning All-Star netminder.
Ethan Rafferty’s dislocated ankle and broken leg had given Hughes an opportunity to escape the wilderness.
Rafferty had been a revelation in 2023, his bursting runs from goal offering an impact beyond what almost anyone else in the position had been able to do.
But as Hughes rediscovered his feet in spring, Armagh’s management came to realise that Rafferty’s eye-catching stuff wasn’t everything.
Hughes was solid. Dependable. Consistent. Flawless, almost.
Everything a traditional goalkeeper is.
With ten minutes to play in last year’s league clash in the Athletic Grounds, Donegal were awarded a penalty.
Oisin Gallen stepped up and Hughes plunged to his left, getting two hands behind it. The game finished a draw, just as the Ulster final would.
Patton ended up the hero in the shootout that afternoon, saving Shane McPartlan’s second spot-kick as the carousel turned for the second time.
Yet it was Hughes who would end up with the All-Ireland medal in his pocket, getting through the 70 minutes unscathed after taking a bad bang to the knee in the warm-up.
Joe McElroy’s impact on his kicking leg was not his last big impact of the day.
Seven months on, Blaine Hughes has lost his place and he might not get it back, through no fault of his own.
They made the switch late on in Galway and stuck with Rafferty against Tyrone. He was not going to let the chance slip by, joining every attack he could, landing two two-pointers off his left and another single-point effort on his right.
The sport has yet to settle into a definable pattern this season with all the rule changes but for now, the fly ‘keeper is winning the debate.
That’s where it will be interesting to see how Donegal approach it once Murphy’s hamstring recovers.
There will be studies compiled in the coming weeks about the effectiveness of the Shaun Pattons against the Ethan Raffertys of the world.
When Kerry won in Celtic Park two weeks ago, Shane Ryan – not for the first time – provided a pivotal moment when he made a brilliant point-blank save from Conor Glass.
He had denied Gareth McKinless in a similar fashion in the All-Ireland semi-final two years ago.
Shaun Patton is a shot-stopper and a distribution artist. Would Michael Murphy be anywhere near as good in those two facets of play?
Say he plays in nets, comes up, scores four points. Patton, who isn’t particularly comfortable in possession and will do anything to avoid having to carry the ball into contact, would never do that.
But if their kickout retention plummets and then Seanie O’Shea’s ball in over the top is reaching a goalkeeper who doesn’t have that same instinctive understanding of when to leave his line, say they concede 1-6 off those two things combined - is it worth it?
In the Ulster final of 2023, Rafferty made a poor decision to come off his line through a sea of orange shirts when he had no need. He didn’t get there. Brendan Rogers got his fist to the ball from 12 yards and it trickled into the net. It was the game’s only goal and a key moment in Derry’s win.
He tipped Kieran McGeary’s shot over late in the win over Tyrone but goalkeeping coaches noted that he went with the wrong hand, reaching across himself with his right hand.
There are times when it’s evident that he’s not a natural goalkeeper.
But as he heads back to Ballybofey, where rather like Niall Morgan he made a sobering championship debut in goals, the weight of what he brings is heavier than that of what he doesn’t.
Shaun Patton is Donegal’s clear first-choice as an actual ‘keeper, and his right boot was shown to be a significant weapon in Kerry.
Whereas most games have descended into chaos around midfield, Donegal’s middle eight strung themselves out across the pitch and created 1v1s that he kicked into. There was, contrary to most of what we’ve seen in the league, almost no scrum for secondary possession.
That might be harder to manufacture in MacCumhaill Park, where the surface just plays tighter than it is.
With plenty of geographical separation, a rivalry between these two isn’t the easiest to conjure. But it absolutely exists right now.
It peaked last summer but a lot of it goes back to the final day of the league in Letterkenny three years ago, when a stoppage time fallout led to five suspensions, of Armagh had their three quashed.
Donegal didn’t appeal theirs, took it on the chin and won the championship meeting anyway.
Two months later, Armagh turned it on its head to end Declan Bonner’s reign.
They drew in the league and the Ulster final last year, were separated by a single point in the Division Two final.
Donegal won that and Ulster. Armagh won Sam.
Thousands will pound the streets of Ballybofey on Sunday afternoon.
You will know by the end of it that there’s no great love lost.
Forget borders.
This is, right now, the pre-eminent rivalry in northern football.