Within touching distance

Allianx NFL Division Twp
Derry v Clare
Sunday, 1pm, Owenbeg
Live on BBC iPlayer

By Michael McMullan (Gaelic Life) 

The snaking run and finish from Brendan Rogers sent a packed Celtic Park into overdrive. 

Coming from six points down to chin the Dubs was another significant step in Derry’s resurgence. 

The Oakleafers went from tame to wasteful before taking solace in a dressing room where regrouping was the order of the day. 

Niall Toner’s goal was one thing, but Gareth McKinless taking a yellow card and laying down a marker seconds later spoke volumes for the added heat Rory Gallagher’s side brought to the second half.  

Backward steps don’t break any delft.  

Winning in the manner they did would’ve been invaluable in the Derry learning curve. The now overused ‘down the stretch’ period of the game saw Derry take more right options than wrong ones.  

Lachlan Murray kicked over a monster point like the one in the McKenna Cup with the nerve of a man with way, way more than the 23 senior appearances to his growing reputation. Throw in Oisin McWilliams arrowing over a point that would grace any stage. 

Going into the game, the fact that Derry were a barometer for Dublin sums up the expeditious rise in the last two seasons. 

The hype and hysteria was followed by a weekend off. Would it kill the momentum? Maybe among the fans. If anything, it will have allowed the jets to be cooled inside the camp before getting ramped up for today. 

Derry must be wary today. They walked the same path last year. One with the smoothest of surfaces until a controversial second yellow card and subsequent one-match ban for Shane McGuigan in the hostile Hyde Park. 

A long trip home with doubt in the back of the Derry minds was followed by a hammering at the hands of Galway. It was a car crash. The game was over well before half-time. 

If Derry take their unbeaten run to 10 games this afternoon, promotion will be secured. For the first time since 2015, top flight football will return to Owenbeg and Celtic Park. 

It’s a long way from playing Sligo with relegation to Division Four on the other side of an unthinkable defeat that raised its ugly head. 

The last two weeks will allow the focus to switch to Clare who are gunning for a win that would take them closer to an eighth season in the second tier under Colm Collins. 

Emmet McMahon, Eoin Cleary and Gavin Cooney will be the names on the Derry minds as they factored in their defensive match-ups this week. Collins’ son ‘Podge’ and Keelan Sexton missed part of the league through injury, but will add to Clare’s cocktail today. 

The Banner season has been up and down. They wrestled an unlikely win from Louth who led for virtually the entire game. 

Meath drove four goals past them, with goalkeeper David Sexton since replaced by Stephen Ryan between the posts. 

Cork hit Clare for three goals in the last outing, but it’s the games in between that will keep Derry’s focus high. 

They came up short to Kildare in a game they should’ve won and played Dublin well for much of the game before being reeled in by Dessie Farrell’s cavalry sprung off the bench. 

When Clare think back to last year’s clash in Ennis, they can reflect on being level seconds after the interval before the introduction of Gareth McKinless. 

Derry then won possession from Stephen Ryan’s kick-out before Benny Heron hit the net and when McKinless added a second goal - also from squeezing the Clare kick-out - the Oaks were on their way to a 2-13 to 0-10 win. 

It got worse for Clare in the All-Ireland quarter-final when Derry put five goals past them on an afternoon Odhran Lynch leaked two at the other end. It mattered little as the Oakleafers were home and hosed. 

The retired David Tubridy is one of four players from that day in Croke Park not to have tasted league action so far this season. 

Eoin McEvoy will be the only Derry player not to have played last summer and Clare’s familiarity will have been helped with the addition of new Slaughtneil manager Mark Doran’s addition to Colm Collins’ backroom team. 

While he’ll not have been up close with the Slaughtneil county contingent so far, he’ll have gone into Emmet Park with his eyes open. You’d imagine he’s studied Glen and saw what makes Ethan Doherty and Conor Glass tick. The same can be said for Magherafelt’s trio of McEvoy, Conor McCluskey and Odhran Lynch. 

While Derry’s brief is simple and a draw will do them, that’s not how it works or how Rory Gallagher’s incessant want for more would allow. 

There is still a visit to Páirc Uí Chaoimh to follow next Sunday and Cork have a tricky visit to Ardee today. 

That’s all well and good, but the last 15 days will have been about one thing - Clare, a win and getting the job done. The one they failed to close out last year. 

If the mentality is spot on and the hunger for high standards follows the Oakleafers down the Owenbeg tunnel, today could well be the day Derry pull their seat up back up at the top table.