A Decade of service Can Sunday bring its reward by Tomas Conlon Ten years on since his championship debut in 1981 and Charlie Mulgrew is still waiting to be on the winning side in an Ulster Senior Final. His decade with Donegal has coincided with their second coming in Ulster football but he has somehow always contrived to miss out on the glory days. 1983 and Donegal took their third Ulster Senior title against old rivals Cavan - Charlie missed it with a broken jaw sustained in the semi-final. Last year they took their fourth title. The semi-final disposed of Derry and, once again, Charlie - this time with a dislocated shoulder. The impending all-Ireland semi against Meath was a race against time which he lost. He played a challenge match six days before but it was too little too late and team manager McEniff deemed him not ready to take part in their thunderous display against Meath that day. A broken thumb left him doubtful for the '89 final but an injection enabled him to play on the losing side to Tyrone. It is by no means an exceptional catalogue of injuries for a top class Gaelic footballer - the real misfortune was in the timing. But it hasn't all been bad luck for the St. Eunan's Letterkenny club man: he was a member of the 1982 team that won Donegal's first all-Ireland U-21 title. And this year he's got his annual injury out of the way good and early. Bruised ribs picked up in the first round against Cavan left him out of the reckoning for the semi-final against Fermanagh, though he did get a ten minute run at the end. That injury is well behind him but he was disappointed to miss out against Fermanagh following a brilliant performance against Cavan. "I was disappointed alright because I was just getting a bit of confidence back and I would have liked to try and build on it. But I was glad to get a run at some stage." That new-found confidence in himself was well justified against Cavan he exerted a decisive influence in the Donegal attack. His personal tally was two points but he set up the two goals which killed off Cavan and several other points also. Midfielder Michael Gallagher scored the first goal having received a swift precise pass from Mulgrew which left him inside the Cavan defence and with a clear run at goal. The second goal was a gem, Mulgrew's "assist" a model of timing, footwork and deception. Taking the ball from midfield, he made ground down the left wing before cutting in goalwards. Substitute Anthony Molloy was inside and screaming for the ball but three or four Cavan defenders were waiting for either man. Still advancing, Mulgrew glanced at Molloy and telegraphed his intention to pass. The Cavan cover sprung to intercept but Mulgrew delayed the pass. With the defence sucked in and converging on him he finally released Molloy - the telegraph, alas for Cavan, was blank. Thousands of Donegal men rose in anticipation of the finish - Molloy obliged. The entire game did not go as smoothly for Mulgrew, however. Donegal forwards had spent the first twenty minutes taking the scenic route to goal with laborious passing movements regularly breaking down. The Letterkenny man was virtually anonymous during this time but a switch from centre-forward to full-forward with ten minutes left in the first half shattered that early torpor. "The way the game developed that day, the switch with Tony Boyle was a big help. Sometimes the game develops differently but that's the way it developed that day-the run of the ball was going for me." Donegal then began playing a more direct game, driving the ball long into the full-forward area and frequently bypassing the half-forward line, Mulgrew, therefore, was getting quality possession consistently for the rest of the game. "That's the long game being played at the moment. Donegal has been blamed in the past for playing too short a game and this has probably been a hindrance in winning matches so we've been trying to develop a longer game. "The short game is a possession game. It's all fine and well if the man taking the ball is going at pace - that's the crucial point in the short game." While Mulgrew knows the value of good quality ball coming in to him he is equally aware of the need to deprive Down's highly accurate forward line of the same quality ball. "If good quality ball is not coming into the forward line you're going to be shut down no matter who you are. It will be up to whoever is picked in our forward line and midfield to ensure there is enough pressure put on the Down midfield and defence to stop them putting in good quality ball. "Personally it's a thing I've always been conscious of and sometimes in the past as a forward I did nothing but tackle. When you're working too hard as a defensive forward and the ball comes up again you don't have the "tank" to play a bit of football. You need to be awfully fit to be a good defensive forward - if that's not a contradiction!" Since Down beat Derry in their replay two weeks ago there have been dark murmurs sweeping an already windswept Donegal about Down being a "bogey" team and how they'd prefer to meet Derry rather than Down any day. But Mulgrew dismisses the burdens of tradition. He does not have an inferiority complex about Down, he insists, because, quite simply, he has won against them enough times in his career to bury any such fears. Besides, there are more tangible worries: Down have had three stern tests already in the Championship and have been sharpened by each of them as they have advanced. Donegal's toughest game so far has neither been Cavan nor Fermanagh, but the recent McKenna Cup Final where they struggled against a makeshift Tyrone team. The class of '82 still forms the core of this Donegal team and it shows in a defence which has looked sluggish this summer. Matt Gallagher, Sean Bonner, Martin Shovlin and Donal Reid have ten years of experienCe and the steel to go with it - but no longer the pace. This Donegal defence needs at least one player of singular pace to match the genuine speed merchants like McCartan and Linden, which may be why Brian McEniff is contemplating a place for Barry McGowan at the back. But as Mulgrew has already pointed out, if they're only being supplied with fifty fifty ball from defence and midfield, then the Donegal backs stand an excellent chance of closing down not just McCartan and Linden but Carr, Blaney and the rest of the Down attack. In any event, Mulgrew will have more than defensive duties to fulfill next Sunday. More a creator than a scorer, he will be expected to make the telling passes for natural finishers like Declan Bonner, Martin McHugh and the two Boyles. Because of his natural instinct to hold the ball a fraction longer, Mulgrew can seem out of sync with the frenzied pace of Championship football. He plays the game at a slower tempo, but if his legs aren't going as fast as those around him, his brain is.Besides, at over 13 stone he has the physique to shield the ball in possession and an array of shimmies subtle enough to elude the tackle. Charlie plays a lot of rugby at outhalf and full-back during the winter with Letterkenny RFC and he believes this has helped his footwork on the Gaelic pitch. " I think it helps because you can incorporate some of the wee shimmies from rugby into the Gaelic as well. If you get the ball in rugby and some of the boys are coming to tackle you, you have to wait until your man comes into the line, you have to hold onto the ball-you can't throw it away." Charlie Mulgrew, like most of that all-conquering U-21 side has reached the landmark age of 30. Along with the four backs mentioned, Molloy, McHugh, himself, Joyce McMullan and Brian Tuohy remain in senior ranks. That's a high survival rate, so why did they win just one senior Ulster title in '83 and have to wait seven years for another? " Maybe that wee bit of success came too young to us. At that stage winning the U-21 was greeted as the nearest thing to heaven. Next year we went on to win the Ulster Championship and we never thought it would take so long to win it again and the years kind of slipped by . . . You just thought at that stage you were going to win. I mean, what the hell, you're winning now, why should winning stop?" Charlie insists 1991 is not the crunch year for this present team of footballers, most of whom have been together for more than a decade now. He argues, quite reasonably, that 30 is not old and while he enjoys his football he won't pack it in until the manager-or his legs-tell him. Injury-free and content with his form on the field, he also seems quite happy with life off it. A Tennents Rep. for six years and married for four, Charlie didn't move from Armagh to Letterkenny until he was 12. But he intends staying put there: "This is home, I wouldn't leave it for the world." Taken from Hogan Stand 26th July 1991 Tweet

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