By 
SENIOR CHAMPIONSHIP FINAL
A SEASON brimming with confidence saw Loughmacrory realise their dreams in brilliant fashion thanks to a Tyrone Senior Final success which has sparked huge celebrations for the St Teresa’s club in recent days.
Victory over Trillick was certainly one to savour for the men in orange and black. They held all the aces when it mattered most to claim the O’Neill Cup for the very first time, and book their place in the Ulster Club for good measure.
Provincial challenges, though, are being set to the one side for now as the full focus remains on reflecting on Sunday’s success and what it means for a community offers so much for its residents and visitors.
One key contribution on Sunday came from goalkeeper, Oisin O’Kane. His moves to midfield during the middle part of the first half heaped pressure on Trillick and provided Loughmacrory with the perfect base to build their challenge.
“This is an unbelievable success for us. It’s going to take a couple of days for this to sink in. This is a dream come true for just, just class,” said the goalkeeper.
“We 100 per-cent believed last week that this would happen. I’d say that this last three or four years we truly believed that this day would come. The game that probably made us really believe that this was possible was in 2020 when we played Dungannon, lost narrowly in extra time and they went on to win the county title.
“All of the players took great belief from that success. Every championship that we’ve played in since then we have been competitive. Errigal beat us in 2021 Carrickmore beat us in 2022, then Trillick in penalties in 2023 and Dungannon last year.
“The team became better and learned from each of those games and thankfully we kept progressing.”
According to Oisin, the advantage of the wind in the first half of Sunday’s county final made a big difference to them.
“It meant that we were able to push up on their kickouts. They got their goal, but thankfully we were able to use the breeze,” he said.
“I was in a state of shock when the final whistle win. It was hard to believe that we’d won it, but we have and that’s what matters.”
Lough midfielder, Aodhan Donaghy, was also delighted with the result.
“It’s class to be county champions. We made a few mistakes, but what mattered is that we got over the line,” he said.
“The lads dug things out, showed a lot of grit and that’s what matters. Trillick have been the benchmark and we knew that we had to up our performance.
“The heartbreak of the past few taught us a lot of lessons and thankfully we learned from those defeats here in this final.”
