Last week Monaghan legend Dick Clerkin penned a pretty damning piece about Derry football, saying that the current problems in the team are more to do with their own genetic make-up than Mickey Harte.
Despite Joe Brolly pointing the finger firmly at the Tyrone man for being responsible for Derry's last three defeats on the bounce, Clerkin believes the players need to take more responsibility, and that this implosion of sorts has always been in the Oakleaf set-up.
In his weekly column in The Irish Independent, the Farney native didn't hold back when it came to sharing his thoughts on the red and white county.
"As long as I know it, Derry football is never too far away from implosion", Clerkin wrote.
"For all of my 17 years playing for Monaghan, Derry were opponents who were never at ease with themselves. I used to relish playing them, and getting under the brittle skin of their players and managers.
"Some years you felt they were just turning up to fulfil the fixtures and couldn’t wait to get back to playing with the clubs."
READ MORE: Monaghan Legend Tears Into 'Brittle' Derry With Damning Assessment Of County's History
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On the latest episode of Free State, the podcast that is co-hosted by Dion Fanning and Joe Brolly, the column came up in conversation.
However, the Dungiven native was in shock that his colleague would even have bothered to read the piece, never mind bring it up as a topic on the podcast, and his reaction tells you everything you need to know about Brolly's feelings towards Clerkin.
"It's not just Dick by name", quipped Brolly.
"I mean that first line... 'I was reading a column by Dick Clerkin'- I hope I am not going to have a catastrophic loss of faith in you Dion.
"This could be the end of a wonderful partnership. Let me just call a time out here on the floor, quite honestly, you're telling me that you read a column by Dick Clerkin?"
"I do extensive research and ready many things before we talk about Mickey Harte", replied a laughing Fanning.
From Thursday’s episode of Free State. Dion quotes from an article by Dick Clerkin… pic.twitter.com/LU3H4FbyDb
— Joe Brolly (@JoeBrolly1993) June 13, 2024
Brolly continued: "I have got to say, that out of all the sentences you could have said - it would have been like whenever the intruder priest was asking Father Ted to guess his name, and he spends half a day running through names.
"Out of all the people, whose columns you could have been reading, I would have never actually said those words. I am amazed."
Given the size and stature of the former Monaghan midfielder, he was not often brushed to the side so easily, but in this instance, Brolly thought him to be irrelevant.
Not surprisingly he doubled down on his stance that Harte was the man to blame for Derry's woes, and the players are the people that he feels sorry for.
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