25 years on: Dungloe-Naomh Columba semi-final remembered

It's 25 years since the last big semi-final clash between Dungloe and Naomh Columba, who meet this Saturday in O'Donnell Park in the Intermediate championship semi-final.

Back in 1996, the sides met in the Donegal senior championship semi-final in MacCumhaill Park with the Glen men coming out on top by two points - 1-10 to 0-11.

In that game two of Donegal's all-time greats, Tony Boyle and John Joe Doherty were in direct opposition. The Naomh Columba full-back was operating on one leg (according to a source this week) after picking up an injury in the first half.

The game turned on a second half penalty and a small point scoring blitz for Naomh Columba in the third quarter, which deprived a good Dungloe side of reaching the final.

Tony Boyle takes up the story: "We won the league that year, if memory serves me right, we won 14 out of 14 in the old 15 team league.

"Then we came up against Glen in the semi-final (of the championship). We just came up short. It came down really to a lack of experience. We led for most of the game. We would always have said Liam Brown, God rest him, gave Glen a soft penalty. Noel (Hegarty) scored it.

"They went one or two ahead and they closed out the game. The wee bit of experience that they had from being in finals in the early 1990s stood to them and it went against us.

"John Joe (Doherty) was picking me up that day and from I can remember, did a decent job on me.

"We were trying to make that breakthrough, to get the monkey off our back, and get into a final.

"Irrespective of whether you won it or not, it would have  been good to make a final," said Tony, who said that he lost four or five semi-finals. "But that was the one we looked back on," said Tony, who feels Glen are the form team going into Saturday's semi-final.

"Maybe one of Dungloe's biggest issues going into the semi-final is that they haven't been tested. It's a difficult one to call. To me it's a 50/50 game but I would have Glen slight favourites," said Boyle, who said that Dungloe are going through a re-building process at the moment.

In goals for Naomh Columba on the day was Martin Gillespie, and the Democrat report states that it was his save late on from Tony's brother, James, which got the Glen men over the line.

"They should have won that game. They were the better team. I think that they made a strange move that day. Tony (Boyle) was in full-forward and they moved him out to centre-half. And I think that's when we got the upper hand," says Gillespie.

"I think we got three or four points late on.

"I definitely know that when we went into the dressing room after the game, you would have thought we lost. We had played so bad and we just knew that we got out of jail.

"Dungloe should have been kicking themselves; I'm sure they were kicking themselves. I spoke to Tony years later and he said that was a big regret for them.

"I don't think they lost a game that year in the league, home and away. We did the same the year before. They had a very good team."

"At that stage we knew how to finish out games. They panicked a wee bit with the finishing line in sight," said Gillespie, who remembered making a save late on from James Boyle. "I managed to get down to it," said Gillespie, who feels that the rematch this weekend will be a good game.

"If Glen play to their ability they should win. If Aaron Doherty plays well."