Over the course of the past decade two Ulster counties in particular have found themselves in the spotlight for the wrong reasons.

Ironically, the counties in question are Derry and Donegal, who will contest the provincial senior football championship final at St Tiernach’s Park, Clones on Sunday week.

Successive Derry managers since 2000 have been left wringing their hands in frustration because the county board regularly insisted on staging club matches on the cusp of major championship assignments in which the county team was involved.

Not surprisingly, this is factored in as one of the reasons why Derry have not won the Ulster title since 1998.

A combination of the county board’s intransigence, injuries picked up by players in club games and training sessions, plus the almost inevitable quota of suspensions which can afflict any county squad invariably impacted on the resources that were available.

It must be said too, though, that while Derry have traditionally had some fine players, their team cohesion has not always been of the highest order.

And while Derry’s preoccupation with club commitments has blighted the county team’s progress to some extent, Donegal players’ tendency to ‘over-celebrate’ even the most modest of successes tended to undermine their commitment to the cause.

Discipline has not quite been of the highest order in the county over the years — the dogs in the street were aware that some of the county’s players enjoyed their socialising to extremes.

Yet that has all changed of late and particularly so since Jim McGuinness took over as manager at the start of this year. McGuinness has instilled a culture of respect, discipline and pride into this Donegal squad that is totally admirable.

It has paid off handsomely to date, too. Donegal won promotion to Division One of the National League and are in the Ulster final — and for a rookie manager to have achieved this is quite something.

Yet the very county board that appointed McGuinness in the first place has now, it seems, pulled the rug from under his feet.

In pressing ahead with a full round of club championship games last Sunday the board risked impacting on the county squad’s preparations for the Ulster final on Sunday week.

McGuinness’s fears that the matches would throw up problems — he had called for them to be put on hold until after the Ulster final — proved well founded.

A fracas after the Naomh Conal v Glenswilly tie left county player Leo McLoone hospitalised with facial injuries which mean that he will be a non-starter against Derry.

And with other players from his squad having picked up niggly knocks, McGuinness’s task in bringing his side to concert pitch has been rendered more difficult,

The Donegal county board has certainly not covered itself in glory in this sorry episode.

Obviously it feels that it has a duty to provide the vast bulk of players within the county with matches but shelving fixtures programmes for a spell is not going to do irreparable harm to the Association.

On the contrary, if Donegal were to win the Ulster crown, this would surely have immense benefits within what has been a success-starved county.

Indeed, for a county that has not won an Ulster crown since 1992, one would have thought that everything possible would be done to facilitate preparations for the showdown with Derry.

Instead, the opposite appears to be the case. Donegal should take a leaf out of Down’s book — the Mourne county reached the All-Ireland final last year after their domestic programme was put on hold, yet it was completed in time to allow the newly-crowned champions Burren to participate in the Ulster club championship.

The row that flared up at the end of the Naomh Conal v Glenswilly game has shown Donegal up in a bad light at a time when the county team is very much in the national spotlight for all the right reasons.

There is every chance that Donegal can still lift the Ulster crown, but it is a matter of regret that some credibility should be lost because of the short-sighted policy of a county board that is obviously not prepared to see the bigger picture.