Derry U20 manager Hugh McGrath gives his verdict on victory over Cavan

Derry Journal

Derry U20 manager Hugh McGrath gives his verdict on the Ulster Championship victory over Cavan which sets up a semi-final against Donegal next Wednesday.

Transcript

00:00 You work away.

00:01 Hugh, good win in the end, possibly not perfect but Israel is a better team.

00:07 I'd just call it a win, not a good one.

00:09 Look, we're through to the next round and that was the aim at the start of the night.

00:13 Have we a lot to take from it to learn?

00:15 Yes, there's lots of things that were very untidy that we wouldn't be happy with

00:19 and given the calibre of football we have, we think we can do better.

00:23 But look, quarter-finals are there to be won, we've won it.

00:26 We wait to see who wins the next game, what way Israel will pan out.

00:29 We have a very short window to get ready, so whatever issues we've had tonight,

00:33 whatever we need to fix, we need to get to work quickly and get those areas fixed.

00:37 It was a slow enough start, a couple of points for Kevin to begin with,

00:40 but once Hughes hit the five on a row, you seemed to take control from there.

00:43 Look, we had an attack right from the throw in and we did a lot in the game.

00:48 We took it into traffic, we took it into areas we didn't want to take it into

00:51 and didn't move the ball through the hands quickly enough.

00:53 That was a bit of a theme for us at different junctures in the game.

00:56 The period you're talking about where he scored five on the track,

00:59 that's when we moved the ball well, we did the things we're good at.

01:02 So yes, lots of bad things and lots of things that were unhappy with it,

01:06 but the good things got us over the line.

01:08 Things like the goal, the movement was excellent for it, the quickness of the hands,

01:12 that's exactly what we want to see and what we know we're capable of.

01:15 We just need to see it more often in the game.

01:17 I mean, first half, you had control.

01:19 What was the message there coming out of the second half?

01:21 Because as much control as you had, they were still very much in the game at that point.

01:25 They were, and look, Kevin, some very good forwards in there.

01:29 James Murray did a really good job on Lovett tonight,

01:32 but he's still a threat and still an issue.

01:35 You've got to cover that threat at all times.

01:37 We did that really well.

01:38 For us, our issue was, I don't want to annoy Willy here,

01:42 but our transition just wasn't good enough.

01:44 It was good to a point, we got it to the halfway line,

01:46 and then we just didn't have enough depth.

01:49 We counteracted that slightly in the second half

01:52 and then tapered off again at the end where we didn't have enough depth.

01:56 But look, those are things we'll get the tape, we'll get the video,

01:58 we'll look at it, we'll see what we need to tweak.

02:01 Hopefully we'll tweak it enough that come the next day,

02:03 we get over the line again, win an Oster final.

02:05 Knockout teams are for winning at the end of the day, and you've done that.

02:08 You're probably going to be looking at an improvement maybe for the semi-final,

02:11 or you'll be after one?

02:12 Well, look, if we don't, we won't be in the Oster final, it's as simple as that.

02:15 The calibre of teams that are left in it are such that

02:18 if you don't improve on what we've seen during the night,

02:20 you won't be going any further and the journey for this group will be over.

02:23 We don't want that to happen.

02:25 The group is good, they've gelled really well, they've connected really well,

02:29 so we want the best for them, and the best for them is to go out,

02:32 perform at their best in the semi-final, and if they do,

02:34 that'll get them over the line.

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