Glenullin manager Paddy Bradley gives his verdict of Intermediate Championship victory

Derry Journal

Glenullin manager Paddy Bradley gives his verdict of Intermediate Championship victory over Banagher in Celtic Park.

Transcript

00:00 How do you tune it all, how do you sum that up?

00:04 Aye, look, for long periods of the actual game itself, thought it was gone.

00:10 Didn't play well at all, just to be told.

00:13 Banner were a very, very good side, well structured, well set up.

00:17 But we didn't play our own game, we were very, very nervous.

00:20 I thought for a team that had been here last year, I thought we didn't deal with the case in that well.

00:24 Gave away a lot of ball and were punished.

00:27 Look, the one thing you can't place with these boys is, you never say their attitude.

00:31 I think in all the games last year, all the Champions League games, we came from behind.

00:34 So we always knew, we talked about it at half time, that this would go down to the very last second, the very last minute.

00:38 And that's the way it panned out.

00:39 Luckily we snatched extra time, but I thought next time we'd be the better side.

00:43 I think our superior fitness, to be told.

00:45 We've done a hell of a lot of hard work.

00:47 The work of the last two years really stood to us.

00:49 Look, just delighted to come where we came from in the last two years.

00:54 Some of these boys, I tell you, you just can't write them off.

00:57 Alexa, Turlock, Neil, Skinner, John, Uni, these older lads, the way they lead these young boys, it's something to behold to be part of.

01:04 It's a different sort of win from last year, Paddy, as you say.

01:07 But people continuously write these off and the boys have found an answer again.

01:12 As you say, not at their best, but you got the job done.

01:15 Look, we don't panic. That's the one thing about it. We don't panic.

01:17 And we have quality in our team.

01:18 As I say, I didn't think a lot of our players played their best game by any means today.

01:21 But they kept fighting to the end. It's a serious quality to have.

01:24 The fact that you go to the very, very last minute.

01:26 Look, as I say, we got out of jail a wee bit in normal time.

01:29 But as I say, an extra time.

01:31 We came from an extra time in the last game.

01:34 I think that really stood to us as well.

01:36 And that goal, just with the last touch of the game, that must have been some boost getting into extra time with that.

01:40 I think Neil actually got ahead of it.

01:43 Look, you take whatever bit of luck you can get.

01:46 We definitely thought over the course of the game we had no luck.

01:49 We kept breaking balls, 50/50 challenges didn't go our way.

01:52 But we definitely had the luck on our side in that last play and got us the extra time.

01:55 And thankfully we've done the job now in extra time.

01:57 How does the feeling compare? Is it better this year?

01:59 Because people questioned whether it even deserved to be in the final last year.

02:02 But you don't win two back-to-back championships by a fluke.

02:06 I think Fulham Vela were the last team to do it in 1998/99.

02:08 So that was the card we had dangling in front of us, trying to get a bit of history.

02:11 The club herself have never ever retained a title.

02:14 So that was what we're trying to achieve here today.

02:17 Just delighted. It's still a bit surreal, it hasn't really sunk in yet.

02:20 You know, after last year, we had momentum the whole way through the season.

02:26 I came in fresh. To be fully backed that up, as you say, Brews were a really good side.

02:30 A good team's one thing, a great team can come and follow it up with a second one.

02:33 We'll go down in history for that, thank God.

02:35 Celebrations now and then on the Ulster?

02:37 Aye, well we didn't do ourselves justice last year at Ulster.

02:40 Probably celebrated a wee bit too much.

02:42 Probably just tough drawing in Galway, we were very, very faulted side.

02:46 We haven't actually obviously thought about Ulster at this stage, I think it's the interim champions.

02:49 But we'll do a couple of days celebrating and then we'll focus on that and try and, you know,

02:53 do better than we did last year, because as you say, we didn't put our best foot forward.

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