OF ALL THE management people involved in the Derry football project, Ciaran Meenagh has been there the longest.
He was there for the dark, dank days of division 4 football when Damian McErlain was manager, when two carloads would have transported the entire fanbase who went to see them play a league game in Waterford.
After McErlain left, he was retained under Rory Gallagher. So when it became obvious that Gallagher could not continue to represent Derry as their manager, it was to the Loughmacrory man they turned as their manager.
He looked delighted and relieved at the end of which must have been a puzzling week.
“Listen, we are a collective management team and I have a motto in life, no fuss, take it as it comes, you take things in your stride and get on with it,” said Meenagh afterwards about becoming the manager.
“That’s the way that I treated today, the players are the same. They are a mature group, there are very little egos in there or egos in our management team. They don’t exist I would like to think, so I think the performance spoke for itself.
“I have a whole range of emotions, it was certainly out of my control as we headed into extra time and certainly when it went to penalties it was in the lap of the Gods.
“We had the experience of a win down in Newry in the McKenna Cup semi-final where he saved a number of penalties that night and we had pretty much the same penalty takers that night so from that point of view while it is a lottery, we were quietly confident when it went to penalties.
“Going in after full time and ahead of extra time we were not in a great place, Armagh had all the momentum and we had it all to prove, they had won the toss, we were playing against the breeze. Look it, now these Derry players have won two Ulster titles in a row, I don’t think their character can ever be questioned.”
There is a bit of chat about Derry having their minds set on higher things this year. All of that seemed on course until fate intervened. But as a team, they are determined to keep going.
As Conor Glass noted in his acceptance speech, they are going to see where this thing takes them.
“They are mature lads who keep their feet on the ground, they take things in their stride as well,” said Meenagh.
“There’s a fair bit of pace in the team and we knew that Armagh were going to come with something different. We had all eventualities prepared for 40 minutes before the game and the substitutions they had made, we had prepared for all of that.
“There was players that came off our bench that did well and then we recycled players back in like Armagh did.
“The experience of the Ulster final last year when we had to do something similar, and as I say – we went for broke. We went for broke at the end, we put forwards on and we didn’t want to die wondering today.”
As for the issue of settling a final on penalties?
“I think it’s a great idea! Nah, I’m only joking. It’s very cruel Armagh but we are in a very condensed calendar.
“The GAA’s hands are tied. We’re in a condensed calendar, the GAA’s hands are tied.
“If we were coming back here to play that next week again, that wouldn’t be ideal preparation. You can’t have it every way. Is there a fair way of finishing any game, when it comes down to referee’s decision or whatever, it’s not ideal. It’s not bad when it works out for you.”
Armagh manager Kieran McGeeney had no regrets.
“Every session, we take penalties,” he said.
“It’s a thing now you just have to get it. Penalties are a funny thing, it’s not like a skillset, it’s a pressure thing being able to deal with that. two penalties in front of you there are so many permutations, in fairness to the keeper, three penalties that were hit were good penalties round the corner. They were good saves, they weren’t bad penalties.”
