Connollys of Moy Tyrone SFC final: Errigal Ciaran 0-12 Trillick 1-8
And I’ll dream each night of some version of you
That I might not have, but I did not lose
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THE lyrics to Noah Kahan’s Stick Season blare out through what was once Kelly’s Inn and is now Canavan’s.
The Monday club is a Saturday club thanks to the uniqueness of a re-fixed Friday night final.
Tommy and Annie Kelly founded the Inn in 1937. It was run by their daughter Patsy and her husband Aidan, who was club sponsor, by the time the O’Neill Cup first came through its doors in 1993.
When it arrived on Friday night, it was coming in for its ninth visit in 22 seasons.
Carrickmore’s six titles in the time period since Errigal was formed in 1990 is the closest to that record.
Enda McGinley spoke afterwards of finding it strange that when people talk of championship tradition in Tyrone, they don’t always think of Errigal Ciaran.
“It’s a hobby horse of mine, that there’s a lot of clubs in Tyrone that are known to have championship tradition, and strangely somehow Errigal rarely come on to that list.
“But we are certainly proud of what we do. There’s this false perception that we expect to win championships. We simply don’t… But we are proud of our own championship tradition, and we’ll go out every year and fight proudly for that, and we’ll see where it ends up.”
To Canavan’s they retired with Ruairi the toast of the evening. Six points, three of them from play, sealing his position as the championship’s top scorer and more importantly edging out Trillick.
It was the moderate voice of his late grandfather Sean chosen by Fr Sean Hegarty to win over the Glencull people when they decided 25 years ago to put the band together.
Darragh Canavan was six years of age and Ruairi was three the last time their father captained the club to the county title in 2006.
Irish News photographer Colm Lenaghan captured the emotional moment Peter and Darragh embraced on the field at the end of the game, head-to-head.
Darragh was emotional speaking from the podium, though his voice had gone too.
In a frenetic final, it became almost impossible to be heard above the noise.
But the two Canavan boys prefer to be seen rather than heard.
They provided eight of Errigal’s twelve points, enough to see Trillick off by the narrowest of margins.
Enda McGinley’s side probably deserved to win it by more but there was just no shaking off the Macartans.
He dryly declared his first year of managing his own club “a thoroughly unpleasant experience to date.”
To be a prophet in your own land is not easy.
There were nights in Dunmoyle through the year when, by his own admission, he talked too much.
The job can become inescapable around home and it’s a fine balancing act when you have the individual quality that he has at his disposal. How much direction is too much and how much is not enough?
“You just feel a huge level of responsibility to the players and to the people of the club because you know how much it means to them.
“There are plenty of people who will handle it in different ways - I’ve found it tough enough to be honest.
“When you’ve the level of boys that you have in the dressing room and they are putting in the work, you just need to make sure that you are dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s as a manager.
“It’s inescapable, but it’s also just how much it means to you, and you also know all of the lads personally.
“I had a bench full of players there that had been putting in powerful effort, and all would have been capable of playing, and yet you’re disappointing them by not playing them.
“So you’re feeling all of that, but that’s a manager’s role.
“It’s just the responsibility you have to try and make the team perform at the level that they’re capable of.
“And sometimes the biggest secret, whenever you have got a good team, and a team that has been previously so well coached, is trying to stay out of their way.
“And sometimes I know fine rightly I talked far too much and went in to far too much depth with them and probably hurt them because of that.
“But look, I think we got the balance right today. The boys went out and put in a really committed performance.”
Their approach on Friday night was brave in the extreme. When you consider the background of Pomeroy and Clonoe, twice, both exposing flaws in their defensive make-up with long-ball approaches that wreaked havoc.
Errigal went full squeeze on Trillick, played long periods of the game with no defensive cover at all.
McGinley mulled over it and concluded that while it could go badly wrong, the alternative was to drop off and hand all control of the game to Trillick.
What they brought was a vibrancy and an energy and a thirst for work. It brought them enough of a sense of control and enough chaos to thrive.
“That’s the entire truth about Gaelic football. It always has been and we can dress it up with tactics and systems and we get very caught up in that nowadays. There is a percentage down to that, but unless you come with those core ingredients, you do not have a mission.”
It’s Stick Season in Canavan’s again. They could live with this version of themselves the best.
MATCH STATS
Trillick: J Maguire; D Donnelly, P McGaughey, D Gallagher; R Brennan; Stevie O’Donnell, Seanie O’Donnell, C Garrity; R Donnelly, L Gray; C Daly (1-0), M Donnelly (0-2), R Gray (0-2); L Brennan (0-3 frees), J Garrity (0-1)
Subs: M Gallagher for R Gray (49), D Tunney for Stevie O’Donnell (59)
Errigal Ciaran: D McAnenly; Cormac Quinn, A McCrory, Ciaran Quinn; P Óg McCartan (0-1), N Kelly, T Colhoun; B McDonnell (0-1), J Oguz; P McGirr, P Harte (0-1 free), C McGinley; D Canavan (0-2), O Robinson (0-1), R Canavan (0-6, 0-3 frees)
Subs: T Canavan for C McGinley (39), M Kavanagh for Colhoun (49), E Kelly for McCartan (56), P Traynor for McGirr (57) Referee: S Hurson (Galbally)