Trillick assistant manager McGinnity praises second half display

TRILLICK stand just 60 minutes away from a fourth Senior Championship title in the past decade, after a clinical ten point demolition of Dungannon on Friday evening, but assistant manager Peter McGinnity has cautioned that “nothing is in the bag yet.”

The reigning champions produced a superb second half display at O’Neill’s Healy Park to dispatch with the Clarkes 0-17 to 0-7, the likes of Colm Garrity, Richard Donnelly and Ciaran Daly slotting over some brilliant scores as they finished with a real swagger.

The curse of the holders- whoever held ownership of the O’Neill Cup- has been well-documented with Carrickmore the last team to successfully defend their crown, back in 2004/5.

Trillick now stand on the cusp of repeating that achievement in a fortnight’s time when they play Errigal Ciaran, though Peter McGinnity stressed that they still had one huge hurdle to overcome.

“We still have another step to go. We just won’t get ahead of ourselves. It was a terrific display but nothing is in the bag yet. We will savour this one tonight and wait to see who we meet in the final.”

The Reds only led by a single point (0-5 to 0-4) at the interval, despite bossing the territorial stakes for the most part – but McGinnity was gushing in his praise of their second half showing as they blew Dungannon away.

“We produced a first class second half against the breeze. I thought in the first half we missed a few easy enough chances which would have put us further ahead. We gave away a couple of fouls which allowed them to score a few frees to stay in it.

But the second half was unbelievable. Some of the scores were out of this world. Fair play to the lads.”

While Trillick popped over some top notch points on the night, McGinnity reserved special praise for the defence which reduced a much vaunted Clarkes attack to no scores from open play across the duration.

“They scored four in the first half and none from play and I’m not sure how many they got in the second. But our defenders produced some brilliant work. They deserve an awful lot of credit.

“Dungannon have great pace and size and boys who can score. Their size caused us problems in the middle of the field from time to time but we were much better at taking scores than they were.”

While Trillick again demonstrated great leadership and composure across the pitch, McGinnity felt there was other traits to their character which were more important.

“More importantly than any of that they are a team of very civil fellas. There are no egos and everyone gets on with it. They all just do the best they can and that is all you can ask of them.”