The blow of being without Gareth McKinless for the season is one that Derry will struggle to recover from in the 2025 championship.
The Ballinderry man has been a crucial cog of the Oak Leafers' set-up in recent years but a cruciate injury in the All-Ireland intermediate final means that he will miss the entirety of their All-Ireland campaign.
Even without the absence of McKinless, Derry look at sixes and sevens as they face down Sunday's Ulster SFC opener against Donegal, having suffered a comprehensive relegation from Division One with just a single point to their name.
In truth, it has been a sharp downward trend for Derry ever since their victory over Dublin in last year's Division One final. Last year's All-Ireland campaign was doomed from the beginning, with an ill-disciplined Derry team ripped apart by Donegal in their Ulster opener. They have won just one game since that league final triumph.
McKinless was at the centre of one of the campaign's most controversial incidents in 2024, sent off for a shocking stamp on Damien Comer in the round-robin series.
Not great.
Gareth McKinless sent off for standing on Damien Comer's ankle. pic.twitter.com/NF0m3ilxWk
— Balls.ie (@ballsdotie) May 18, 2024
It gained widespread comment, with fans piling on abuse online and the likes of Joe Brolly weighing in with their views.
As he looks ahead to a 2025 without championship football, McKinless spoke on the incident to the BBC's GAA Social podcast, and revealed what was said when he and Comer discussed the incident after the game.
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Derry's Gareth McKinless finally opens up on contentious Damien Comer clash
Speaking to Thomas Niblock and Armagh legend Oisín McConville on this week's GAA Social podcast, Gareth McKinless denied that his apparent stamp on Damien Comer had been calculated or that he had gone out to injure the Galway man.
However, McKinless did admit that the incident had looked bad, and that his mistake had cost his team.
Most intriguingly, he said that he had reached out to Comer after the incident to cool the air, receiving some advice from the All-Star forward.
Oh, no, 100% (it looked bad), I understand. 100% [I made a mistake].
I was chatting to Damien after that match, he was 100%. I know it's bad and it's easy for me to say but like...I'm not saying I'll stick up for myself but...there was no malice. It wasn't a...if I wanted to, I could have easily tried to really hurt him. But that wasn't my intentions.
It was trying to...you try to get away with some things.
I reached out to [Damien Comer]. I went to see him after that game and couldn't get him...I actually have him on Instagram, I sent him a message. I knew deep down that there wasn't malice in it. It obviously looked bad but it didn't hurt him.
I reached out to him and said there was no intention in it, I didn't mean to hurt you if I did.
He said, 'Don't worry about it.' He actually said, he mentioned social media. He said, 'Look, don't worry what people are saying. It's a red card, it happens, these incidents happen. It's all part of our game, good luck for the rest of the season.' Fair enough!
It's nice to know that the pair buried the hatchet, and Comer seemed to take the incident in his stride.
However, his warning to the Derry man proved to unfortunately come to fruition.
Though McKinless says that he himself does not pay much heed to social media, he says that some of the abuse he received online after the incident took its toll on his family and friends.
"Probably the biggest thing was the effect it had on other people within my own circles," McKinless said, "Family members, girlfriends, you know...when people are saying, 'Oh, did you see this on Twitter? Did you see this?'
"When it's affecting your family and friends in that sort of regard, then I think it's a bit much. At the end of the day, we're amateur sportspeople."
Derry will certainly miss Gareth McKinless this season, as they desperately try to salvage what increasingly looks set to be another lost year.
They get their Ulster campaign underway on Sunday, with throw-in against Donegal in Ballybofey at 2pm. The game is live on RTÉ 2.
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