In his first year at the helm Enda McGinley has guided Errigal Ciaran to the top of Tyrone football again as they lifted the O’Neill Cup for the second time in three years and 11th in their history on Friday night at O’Neill’s Healy Park.
In doing so they gained revenge for last season’s extra time defeat by Trillick and McGinley remarked afterwards just how tough it is to a win a Tyrone Senior Championship title and he paid tribute to the work that has been done in the Errigal Ciaran club over the years.
“Trillick had set the bar there is no getting away from that and our boys knew that was the level that they had to get to,” he said.
“We all know how difficult it is to win the championship in Tyrone as there are a number of clubs there who have done it and a number of clubs who are closing the gap so on any given day you know that you are going to be in for a battle.
” It’s a massively competitive championship and I think that our boys have proven on a number of occasions that they are one of the best teams in it but that’s it. After that you are down to a wee rub of the green and we got that at times earlier in the Championship and that helped us get over the line this year.”
McGinley knew that only Errigal’s best performance of the season would suffice to get past the defending champions Trillick, a side laced with talent across every sector of the pitch.
” There were no thoughts in the buildup to Darragh going up those steps and raising the O’Neill Cup it was purely about Trillick and trying to measure ourselves against them. I thought that we put in a decent performance today and yet we couldn’t shake them off.
” Trillick are an exceptional team and with their age profile they aren’t going away anytime soon and there are plenty of other sides there as well so our job now is to try and enjoy this one as in Tyrone you tend to get only one in a row.
” We are very happy, there is a serious group of players in that changing rooms who have put a serious amount of work in this past number of years and that is the only way that you get to the top in the Tyrone championship as the bar is incredibly high.
” You don’t win a championship on one years work so a lot of credit has to go to the coaching team as well as Mark (Harte) and Adrian (O’Donnell) and Pascal (Canavan) before that as well as all the underage coaches over the years. I’m the man at the helm now but it’s a club win.”
At times in their run to the final Errigal Ciaran may not have been at their best but in each of their performances McGinley saw that things were coming together and that was what happened as on the biggest stage of all they produced their best display.
“I think people saying that we hadn’t played well on our way to the final suited us and was perhaps disrespectful to Pomeroy, Clonoe and Killyclogher who all pushed us,” he said.
“We felt that we had shown enough in those games to suggest that we were building something and had enough key moments in those games to suggest that it was going to count on the big day.”
When the winners moved four clear in the 41st minute they looked to be well on their way but Enda knew that it was far from over and he was delighted that Ruairi Canavan came up with a brilliant winning point.
“You always knew that there was going to be a twist you just weren’t going to gradually ease home,” he said.
“They got their goal to level matters and funny I turned to Stevie Quinn on the sideline and said it was better that came now than maybe two minutes before time. I thought that we were playing well at the time of that goal and to be honest I thought that they may go one or two up but I would then have expected us to get a purple patch.
” The fact that they didn’t push on after the goal helped us as it was exceptionally tight and cagey. Ruairi missed one but I was delighted that he stood up and didn’t lose confidence and backed himself to hit an awesome shot for the winner.”
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