Enda praises the guts shown by Errigal on Saturday night

ERRIGAL Ciaran powered across the finish line in a hotly contested Ulster Senior Championship preliminary round clash in Omagh on Saturday night.

Enda McGinley, who manages the team alongside Stevie Quinn, praised a gutsy performance from his troops – though he was less enamoured with other elements of their play on a night where sheer force of will made the difference against the Donegal champions.

With scant time to reflect with a provincial quarter-final clash against Cargin in the pipeline, Errigal’s third blockbuster match in as many weeks, McGinley offered a measured appraisal of their latest win.

“As I said to the boys in there, they had every excuse going to lose that game, in terms of coming in off the county final the previous week.

“You could see the tiredness in the leagues and you’re factoring that in with us being out again next week. We were struggling up front, we were missing chances, attacks were breaking down in a sloppy enough fashion.

“It felt like one of those nights where it wasn’t going to happen,” he added. “But the boys that made it happen were those boys on the pitch at the end, and despite the tiredness, they stood up, got their hands on the ball and showed composure to get the critical scores at the end. You can’t buy that element within a team but we definitely need to be playing better football.”

Errigal scored four of the last five points in a 0-12 to 0-10 victory, three of which came from Ben McDonnell in front of a live television audience with the game broadcast by the RTÉ cameras. McGinley was delighted with Ben’s contribution.

“Obviously we have the named players that always draw quite a bit of attention and that can often create pockets of space for other players.

“Ben certainly did fantastically well, and I’m delighted for him and delighted for the team. We have always said that we are more than our star names, but we know we have to start playing better and score more from the chances we got.

“But look, Ulster Club football is all about surviving and we did that brilliantly in the last few minutes.”

Their upcoming encounter against Antrim champs Cargin will be a family affair for McGinley, who is married into the McCanns, a famous gaelic footballing family in the club.

“The plus side is that McGinley’s research is oven-ready. I have been lucky enough to watch them for a long number of years and enjoyed watching them, obviously supporting the brother in laws and the rest of them.

“Funny, Eamonn McCann (proprietor of CrossFit Anam in Toomebridge), who has done our gym work this year along with Tommy Canavan, he very kindly offered us a free session there on Tuesday night, but I’m going to decline him this time, and we’ll go on our own steam for this match.”

Following Errigal Ciaran’s Tyrone Senior Championship final victory over Trillick ten days ago, Enda McGinley quipped that he had found his first year at the helm of his home club “a thoroughly unpleasant experience to be absolutely truthful!”

Asked if the pressure is off now that the O’Neill Cup has been safely secured, McGinley rowed back on his comments about the strain of managing Errigal, citing the shock news that his Trillick counterpart Jody Gormley has been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

“I am a wee bit embarrassed about that. You soon get a bit of cop on given the news that came out of Trillick and Jody Gormley.

“That was one hell of a wake up call, some perspective to be very grateful to get working with these boys. I’m very grateful that we got over the line and the performance to win the Tyrone championship and we can always be proud of that.

“And we’re determined to make it count now because the likelihood of us being here next year and getting out of the Tyrone championship is highly unlikely, so you have to make it count when you are here.”

Errigal Ciaran stand alone as the only Tyrone club to have won the Ulster Senior Championship, and have done so twice, but McGinley pointed out that their 1993 and 2002 successes are a long time ago at this stage.

“Yes, we’re a club with a proud tradition but we’re well aware that you have to keep building on that, and we have failed to do that for a while.

“Trying to win an Ulster club feels a long way away tonight, to be honest, but we’re alive. There’s bodies that are tired in there, that’s the focus at the moment, if we don’t get that end of it right there’s no thinking about titles.”