Emotional McMenamin praises ‘outstanding’ St Macartan’s group

ST Macartans manager Ryan McMenamin was visibly emotional in the aftermath of Saturday evening’s Ladies Senior Championship Final extra-time victory over Carrickmore at O’Neill’s Healy Park.

Known most prominently to the outside world as the tigerish defender at the coalface of an unprecedented period of success for both Dromore and Tyrone back in the day, McMenamin showed his softer side after St Macartan’s made amends for last year’s county final defeat to Errigal Ciaran.

McMenamin has been involved in the St Macartan’s set-up for a decade at this stage, a period in which they gobbled up county title after county title.

But they’ve been wounded by recent defeats on the big stage, so to come back yet again and restore their position at the top of the tree of Tyrone ladies football means the world to all involved.

McMenamin said: “It’s nice to win after extra-time, to be on the right side of it this year. I know what Carrickmore are feeling, it’s heartbreaking for them, but I think our girls showed great resilience.

“I’ve been with this group for maybe 10 years and they never let you down. It’s not often I get emotional but I get emotional chatting about them. You can’t coach drive, you can’t coach hunger and those girls have that all the time.”

The Clogher Valley club now stand alone at the top of the roll of honour list with 14 Senior Championship titles to their name. ‘Ricey’ says that the players set incredibly high standards for themselves and that’s half the battle.

“They’re an absolute pleasure and they do a lot of the managing themselves. There’s tears, there’s arguments and they call each out out in the changing rooms – they’re one of the most driven bunches I’ve ever coached and I’ve coached a lot of teams.

“The thing about it is, they’re a standalone ladies club. The men from Eskra, Augher, Clogher, they back them surely, but what you see out there on the pitch is our committee. They’re fighting against the tide, they won’t know they won’t be winning forever and I enjoy that resilience of fighting against the tide, it’s class.”

McMenamin also paid tribute to all those who have been involved with the club since its very inception and beyond.

“There’s been a lot of good people here. Sean McElroy started it back in 1992. Gerard McQuaid put in serious work and got them to the title in 2009 and we’ve just carried on and carried on.

“The committee is on the same page as us, they know there’s going to be good and bad days but they’re always trying to push it on.

“These are outstanding women and they do so much for the community and they’re fantastic role models in every respect.”