Player welfare paramount for Trillick boss Gormley

FOR Trillick boss Jody Gormley, short-term expediency simply isn’t countenanced.If a player is suffering a strain or knock of some sort, so be it – they will carry out their rehabilitation to the letter of the law. Playing through the pain barrier is not an option.

He believes that’s one of the reasons that Trillick have found themselves back in county final day, building up a head of steam when it matters most.

Gormley, a proud native of the club, said: “Our focus at the start of the year was to make sure we’d everybody fit and healthy for the Championship.

“That was our focus and you know, maybe there were some league games that were sacrificed a bit as we didn’t want to take any risks with players.

“Our view is that player health is paramount so if a player was carrying an injury, we made sure he was looked after.

“I think that’s paid off because we have everyone fit and healthy apart from Simon Garrity, who got an unfortunate metatarsal injury in the warm-up against Ardboe in the quarters.”

Jody says that Trillick haven’t made a crusade out of retaining their title, but at the same time he acknowledges that there’s something special about the notoriously unforgiving Tyrone Senior Club Championship.

“[The back-to-back] is something for journalists and supporters to be thinking about. We’re thinking about the next game and that’s the way we go about our business. We’re always looking to improve and learn from the last game, so it certainly isn’t something we’ve focused on – it hasn’t been mentioned.”

He added: “The Tyrone Championship is fairly unique at this stage. We’re in the final but it’s been knock-out the whole way through so you have that added tension. Players have to learn to deal with that and if they can do so, it puts you in a good place when you get to a final.”

It hasn’t been smooth-sailing for Jody on a personal level this year as he suffered a stroke while on a family holiday in Orlando, Florida during the summer. Thankfully, he’s on the road back to recovery and has been ever-present on the sidelines during Trillick’s Championship run to another final.

Reflecting on the minutiae of their victories to date, he says that their wins over Eglish and Ardboe were more convincing than they were given credit for.

“Until you play your first game in the Championship, you have no idea of where you are, but it’s like doing an exam paper, until you get some results in front of you, do you really know where you stand?

“On our first day out, Eglish asked certain questions of us but I felt we pulled away in the second-half. Ardboe were a different type of opponent – they’re very pacey and direct – but again, we felt quite comfortable in the final ten minutes.

” Maybe the scoreboard didn’t reflect that but we certainly weren’t under any real pressure. We have a lot of leaders in the squad and we managed the game well.”

Appraising their 0-17 to 0-7 rout of Dungannon at the semi-final stage, Jody again wondered whether the final scoreline told the full story.

“If you look at the final result, it seemed like Trillick were very dominant but it was only really in the final fifteen minutes when we pulled away. You have to factor in as well that Dungannon had a lot of injuries. Ben Gormley was a big loss and Paul Donaghy wasn’t at full tilt.

“There’s no doubt we still played well and we pride ourselves on our levels of fitness, boys worked exceptionally hard. There’s a real drive in our group and I think that came through in the end.”

So who’s it going to be this Sunday? Errigal Ciaran are bidding for their second title in three years and we know all about Trillick’s recent achievements. It’s delicately poised.

“There’s no doubt about that, and we would think that it’ll go down to the wire again. There’s no question that the teams are evenly matched. It’s an old cliché but it’ll come down to who wants it most, which makes for an intriguing battle.”