"Nothing makes you focus better than a genuine hatred and nothing gave me a greater reason for genuine hatred than a couple of their backsf I'd heard of their carry-on before but basically McMenamin was just a mouthpiece in that league game in 2001. He spent the whole time talking about my ma and my sister.

The guy never shuts his mouth. Usually when he starts, Gormley starts, too. I wouldn't say I'm short tempered but I lost it and I punched Gormley in that mouthpiece of his and he started bleeding. . . there were two umpires there who I am convinced saw everything that had happened but never said a thing, maybe because they'd heard a lot of what the lads were saying."

The Crossmaglen Rangers player says things got worse as the rivalry progressed and that the lowest point came during the drawn Ulster final of 2003. "I was going through near the end and Ryan McMenamin's foot-blocked mef Gormley was right up there straight away, thinking that it was somehow his business, but then again he seems to think everything on a football field is his business. The two of us were ready to go at it and next thing Brian Dooher came running from the other end of the field and said, 'Don't worry, Conor, he won't hit you; sure, he only hits girls.' I was still there in Gormley's face but I was slightly taken aback. Had it come from the guy only inches from my eyes I would have expected it. But to come from Dooher? I have to say I expected better of himf I don't think Mickey Harte knows how they carry on but it goes against everything he believes in."

McConville says Dooher's words came from rumours that claimed McConville had beaten up Fionnuala McEntee, a life-long family friend and sister of McConville's club and county teammates John and Tony, and from other lies circulating that he had beaten up his girlfriend.