Trillick boss Gormley delighted to clinch more silverware

JODY Gormley describes it as a ‘privilege’ to manage the Trillick team that completed a memorable league and championship double with Sunday’s hard-fought Division One final victory over Carrickmore.

Gormley has poured countless hours into the job of managing his native club and that’s without mentioning the extensive commuting time and he’ll take a well-earned break over the Christmas period, but he says he’s more than happy to make personal sacrifices when he knows he’s getting the same in return from a ferociously committed bunch of players, as well as the rest of the management team.

They capped off a remarkable season with a 0-8 to 0-7 victory at O’Neill’s Healy Park and now they can finally afford to sit back and truly savour what’s been a magical season for the St Macartan’s.

Asked if he’ll miss the weekly routine of preparing for seismic league and championship encounters over the next while, he said: “I probably will but at the same time we need a bit of a rest. I think I’ve done something like 32 thousand miles this year.

“It’s a lot of travelling but it’s worth every minute of it when you see what it means to people. I keep saying to the players, ‘not every team is like this, not every club is like this’.

“The energy in the group and the commitment of the players is at 100 percent all of the time and that’s not just words, it’s the reality. The very special thing is that you could see that players weren’t happy to just bank the championship win, and it’s a privilege for me to be involved with a group like this.”

Reflecting on how Trillick bounced back from being a whisker away from reaching the Ulster SFC Club Championship final, Jody Gormley said it was important for his side to finish the season on a high note. They dusted themselves down and claimed hard-fought wins over Killyclogher and Carrickmore and in doing so won the All County League Division One title for the ninth time in their illustrious history.

Gormley commented:  “I think it was important. Winning the league last year gave us a big bounce. It was something that we could focus on, that we had finished the season on a high.

“We were conscious of the fact that there are other teams in Tyrone who we don’t want to let any of them get the bounce that we got.

“So the group felt that this game was very important. “Trillick have won one double, in 1983, so it was important for the group to go out and give a good account of ourselves and finish the season out.”

Trillick have gone to the well time-and-time again this year and Gormley says that their character was once again in evidence as they hung on against a Carrickmore side that gave it absolutely everything.

“They have immense character. We set out at the start of the year to build on what had been done in previous years.

“We have had a couple of very close calls, and today was no different, but you can always dip back onto that character in key moments, in tough conditions today.

“It took a lot of effort to get back. That week after the Scotstown game was tough, but once we got that week out of the way, got over the Killyclogher game, there was a big bounce in training again last week. There was a big bounce in training, and fortunately we got over the line today.”