St Mary’s manager Paddy Tally hailed his side’s dramatic Sigerson Cup quarter-final victory over DCU as a “massive result” after the Belfast college upset the 9/2 bookies’ favourites at their home ground.
A thrilling finish saw Cathal McShane send the game to extra-time at the DCU Sportsground before the Tyrone forward kicked the winning score to book a semi-final clash against University College Cork at the Connacht GAA Centre in Bekan, Mayo next week.
They will be Ulster’s sole representatives in the last four of the Sigerson Cup after Martin McHugh’s Ulster University suffered a 12-point defeat to holders UCD in Jordanstown yesterday.
“That’s massive result for us because it’s as hard as it gets in Sigerson – to come to DCU for it to go to extra-time and then win it,” said Tally (above).
“Two years ago DCU came to us in Belfast. It went to extra-time and they beat us by a point or two, so we knew it was going to be very tight, so we are just delighted to come through it.”
St Mary’s had to come from four points down to level the tie five minutes into injury-time before they scraped a famous extra-time win over the 2015 champions.
“We knew we had the game to give DCU trouble and it just took a massive effort to come through a game like that and our boys really rose to it,” said Tally, who was delighted with his side’s disciplined tactical effort.
“We have a system and when we play the system well we are effective but when we deviate we can be caught,” said the St Mary’s boss.
“We came ready today.
“It’s very satisfying from a coaching point of view… our boys wouldn’t be as well known as them [DCU’s stars], so it takes a wee bit of belief as well.”
With the semi-finals scheduled for Friday week, Tally admitted his players will be tired after their extra-time efforts.
“It’s heavy going on the boys and a few of them will have National League matches this weekend as well, but the thing is to recover them as best they can and we are really looking forward to the weekend,” said the Ranch manager.
