Football

Derry turn focus to Ulster Championship after missing out on promotion

Derry manager Rory Gallagher views his side's campaign as a “serious success”. Picture Margaret McLaughlin
Derry manager Rory Gallagher views his side's campaign as a “serious success”. Picture Margaret McLaughlin Derry manager Rory Gallagher views his side's campaign as a “serious success”. Picture Margaret McLaughlin

DERRY finished just short in their push for promotion but manager Rory Gallagher views the campaign as a “serious success”.

And rightly so. The Oak Leafers took 11 points from their seven games and you have to go way back to 1993 when Donegal topped Group B in a one-off League format with 14 points and Kildare came in second on 12 to find an instance when that tally wouldn’t have been enough to secure top flight football.

After five wins, a draw and a single loss to Galway, the Derry manager is happy with the progress made and now he has a month to prepare his men for an Ulster Championship quarter-final against the winners of the Tyrone-Fermanagh preliminary round clash.

Gallagher’s men are viewed by some as dark horses for the Anglo-Celt, he wants them to be seen as genuine contenders.

“I wouldn’t like Derry to be seen as dark horses, I want Derry to be seen as a real threat,” said Gallagher after Sunday’s thrilling comeback win against Meath in Navan.

“We’ll see what happens on Easter Saturday evening between Tyrone and Fermanagh. I think, hand on heart, people expect Tyrone to come through that. They are the All-Ireland champions and they’re the All-Ireland champions for a reason but we know we will have to improve an awful lot.

“We can’t be in control of a game like we were today, miss what we did and hand control of the game to the opposition – we’re going to have to learn from that. But it’s exciting, you want to be playing the best teams and seeing if you can go toe-to-toe with them.”

Another season in Division Two may well work in Derry’s favour. The Oak Leafers came up from Division Three last year and, after Dublin and Kildare were relegated from the top flight, the competition in the second tier will be fierce next year.

“We’ve done a lot of learning and I would have loved to get to Division One for the players,” said Gallagher.

“We haven’t but we’ll be in good company next year with Dublin and Kildare. I would have loved to get to Division One but we also have to be realistic, we have to learn. We got no learning out of the vast majority of the 12-13 games we went unbeaten but playing against Meath, who have spent time in Division One, playing against Galway, Roscommon…

“I think Galway are a top five-six team without a shadow of doubt and we want to play against these teams and we want to start beating them regularly.”

Derry needed to win in Meath and hope that Galway, who had already secured promotion, would do them a favour against Roscommon. Gallagher’s men kept their side of the bargain but the Rossies won by five points to take second spot.

“Hand on heart, I know Padraig (Joyce, Galway manager) really well and they have to look after themselves – they’re not going to go full-pelt,” said Gallagher.

“All our group felt that Roscommon were going to win the game but it is what it is. I knew this was going to be a massive test for us, in the first half last week (against Galway) we were still wounded and raw from the previous week – we felt a serious injustice to us and to Shane McGuigan (harshly sent off against Roscommon).

“But we were brilliant in the first 20 minutes today, we controlled the game and when we lost a bit of momentum (Derry trailed by five points at one stage in the second half) we had a real test of character. We want these tests, you can’t be frontrunners every day, you’ve got to learn how to roll with the punches and deal with a bit of adversity in a game.”