CLUTCHING the man of the match trophy, Emmett McGuckin arrives back at the Magherafelt changing room just before their long-lost friend, John McLaughlin.
The cup they’d been waiting to be reunited with since 1978 is carried over the threshold by Danny Heavron, and the party begins.
While the current Glen team came up backed by the fanfare of four straight Ulster minor club titles, the Rossas built a fair decent underage legacy themselves, that includes two All-Ireland Féile titles in the last 12 years.
Emmett McGuckin was just too old for the first team in 2007, one which provided Fergal Duffin, Antone McElhone and Shane Heavron to the side that claimed the senior crown on Sunday.
The 28-year-old, now doubling up on the GAA with playing Irish League soccer for Coleraine, had a huge influence on the game, between winning so much ball in the air at midfield and then dipping to full-forward, where he scored three points including his side’s final effort.
"It's brilliant. Man of the match is a nice thing to get but it is all about the team and community; the club and the whole town. This is massive for us. Those wee things are nice and you always remember them but we'll never forget this day.
"It has been a long time coming. You can see Danny Heavron, Jared Monaghan, 'Chief' [Darren O’Neill], myself, John Young - some of us are into the 15th, 16th year of senior football, this is my 12th or 13th year - and we have never got near this.
“This year things just fell our way and the credit must go to everyone involved. You can see the support Magherafelt bring to a big game and those supporters are a real credit too.
"It hasn’t sunk in yet and probably won't for a day or two but to get over the line in the fashion we did was great. We fought right to the end, and this win is massive.
“It’s hard for anybody that’s not here but what you saw after the match, it means the absolute world to us as players. Winning means the world to us.
“It’s not just for the players or the management or past players, it’s for the community, it’s for the town, for people living away, for boys that went before us and people that aren’t here any more.”
The Rossas weren’t really on the radar back when it all began, a lot down to the fact that they’d drawn county champions Eoghan Rua in the first round.
But ever since McGuckin rose at the far post to palm home a late winning goal that night, there’d been a steady sense growing that this would be their year.
"We always fancy ourselves. We'll always come into a game quietly confident but nearly every game we went into, we were big underdogs and we played that underdog card relatively well,” said McGuckin.
“Coleraine the first day, then Ballinascreen, those two have been two of our bogey teams in years gone by, and we got over both of them.
"We came to this final and there's no point lying, we were massive underdogs again. Glen put out an unbelievable Slaughtneil team and credit to them, they are a quality, quality team but as Danny Heavron said in his speech, these days don't come around too often.
"Glen will be disappointed today but it had to go one way and thankfully for Magherafelt, it went our way.”
It was all the perfect vindication for Adrian Cush and his players, who had taken so much flak after their championship defeat by Slaughtneil last year.
They played a perfect game on Sunday, forcing Glen out of the areas that they wanted to shoot from, as well as hammering the Watties’ kickout and displaying some excellent counter-attacking football.
“That was hard at the time,” said McGuckin of last year.
“Four or five minutes and the next thing we’re slated across the country. But what odds? We were beat that day. That’s the way it happens. We’re a whole new team.
“You can see the desire and fight in the young boys, and they’ve passed that on to us, put that back in our hearts and our bellies to push on.
“Simon McErlain dived on a ball there from about 10 metres away to win the break. That’s what we’re about. It came to the fore on the biggest day of the year, and thankfully it did.
“You can see what it means to the management. They’re like Magherafelt people now, they’ll go down in history as true Rossas. That’s hard for people outside the town but you see what it means to them, that’s massive.
“They’ve put in massive work and it’s nice to see them standing here beside us now with their families and every one of them out on the pitch.”
