It is a hazy day in the big Apple. The man walks crankily across the turf, and barks: “Is that the 85 Bears over there?” 
The man is Tom Coughlin. He is the Head Coach of the New York Giants and is denouncing his offence, who are having no success against his defence during a practice session. 
His comment tells you a lot about the psyche of American sports. Good defence is applauded, and savage ferocious defence is revered. 
The 1985 Chicago Bears won the Superbowl, their defence considered as one of the best of all time. Their offence a sort of an afterthought. Italian soccer has a similar mentality, rejoicing in clean sheets. 
The GAA doesn’t quite work like that and so Fermanagh, and Rory Gallagher in particular, are being painted as public enemy number one by many outside the county. 
Living in Fermanagh we are somewhat insulated by the bubble of joy we are all enveloped in at present. But take a delve into social media and you will see that there is a fair degree of lambast emanating from outside the county. 
Of course, we shouldn’t care about what the outside world thinks, but it is worth dispelling a few myths and putting a few things in context too. 
Firstly, let us go back to 2011. 
Jim McGuinness was in his first year in charge of Donegal and Rory Gallagher was his first lieutenant. An Ulster title was annexed, Kildare were beaten in the quarter final before an audacious defensive strategy was deployed against Dublin in the semi-final. 
Pat Spillane almost combusted in the RTE booth. Managing to insult a good portion of Islam he proclaimed that there was a tribe in Iraq called the ‘Shi’ite’ and that he was witnessing ‘Shi’ite’ football. It got a chuckle from the lads in studio but rather missed the point of what McGuinness was doing with Donegal. It was year one and defence was his priority. 
I was struck by that when watching Fermanagh and Monaghan. 
There is a lazy cliched analysis out there that Fermanagh do not try and work on attack. That they are obsessed with defence. It is not true. Gallagher wants his team to attack. 
From the first McKenna Cup game he has been bellowing from the side line looking for men to break at speed and he wants to commit men forward. 
Has he made getting the defensive set up a priority? Probably. But he is working on attack too. 
Speaking to the press after games this season he has been frustrated by poor conversion rates, poor shot selection, by an inability to get quality ball into the full forward line, and other parts of the attacking game plan that he believes are not being executed as they should. 
Fermanagh under Gallagher are a work very much in progress and I would venture that in year two we will see a greater understanding and execution from players in terms of attacking play. We might even see it in the Ulster final. 
If we do, I believe we will almost certainly win. 
That is the holy grail for managers. That beautiful symbiotic balance between defensive soundness and clinical attacking. Listening to some experts it seems that good defence and good attack are mutually exclusive. They are not, but the former is the foundation. 
Now, without a potent attack you are on a tightrope because you need to be near perfect in defence. Against Monaghan Fermanagh were perfect in defence. But if you think Gallagher does not want more from his attacking game, or that he is not frustrated that his side haven’t posted more in the championship to date, then you are naive in the extreme. 
He knows that needing a perfect defensive performance game after game to win will eventually lead to defeat. 
In fact, if you look at Gallagher’s time as Donegal manager he tried to be more expansive than his predecessor. It didn’t work for him in terms of championship success, but it points to the fact that Gallagher’s philosophy on football is a lot more nuanced than the lazy clichéd analysis would suggest. 
There is also a myth out there that playing with men behind the ball is the easy thing to do. 
Our friend Mr Spillane exposed such a notion on Sunday. All you have to do is drop 14 men behind the ball and Robert’s your fathers brother. 
This is ridiculous, shows a lack of knowledge and is more than a little condescending. 
In fact, in a way, a defensive system such as Fermanagh are employing takes more cohesion and honesty than the attractive attacking styles that many people love to watch. 
There are some teams blessed with such fantastic forwards than a couple moments of brilliance from them can be the difference between winning and losing. That is not the case when it comes to defending. 
The adage that you’re only as strong as your weakest link is most apt in this scenario. Tracking runners from deep, shifting as a unit when the play is switched, disciplined tackling, forcing shots from bad areas, pressing in a collective manner in the right areas of the field, being able to subtly change things from opposition to opposition. 
The list is endless, and all of this takes extreme mental concentration as well as supreme levels of fitness. 
Finally, before signing off, a quick rant on the tiered championship beloved by so many pundits and journalists. Go away and boil your heads folks. Three quick points. 
1. Football is not like hurling. How many teams outside the top ten in hurling could even compete with a team inside the top ten. Answer is none. Football is quite different. Sure, Dublin would hammer 27 or 28 other counties in the country in the championship but they are the exception. Fermanagh just beat a team considered to be in the top six. We are in no-ones top 12 – well, maybe we are now, but that is sort of my point. A team can come from the pack and do well. 
2. The national media won’t care about the lower tiers. Three journalists sat in the press room after the Division Three final between Fermanagh and Armagh. The Nicky Rackard Cup, The Lory Meagher Cup, The Christy Ring Cup – they are afterthoughts when it comes to the national media. A second tier football championship would be the same, and it would cause long term harm in those counties in the second tier. 
3. If there was a two tiered championship this season, based on league placings, nine games between Division one/two teams and Division three/four teams would not have taken place. In those nine games the Division one/two teams have won five of the nine games. Hardly a ringing endorsement of the gulf in class that so many argue about. 
A tiered championship? Now, Pat, if you want to invoke a branch of Islam now is the time to do it.