WINNING managers often praise the opposition but even the erudite Enda McGinley couldn’t polish this turgid display from Cargin.
The Errigal Ciaran manager has four McCann brothers-in-law on the Erin’s Own panel, three of whom played, but although he was never likely to criticise them, kind words were hard to find as his own club were far too quick and skilful on the day for the Antrim champions.
Three up inside four minutes, the Ballygawley men led by six points at half-time and ended up convincing eight-point victors, despite some wayward shooting at Corrigan Park. Cargin were far less effective in attack, though, with only four different scorers compared to nine for Errigal.
The former Tyrone midfielder acknowledged that the Toome team had fallen far short of their usual standards, saying: “Sometimes in the modern game when one team under-performs and the other clicks there’s more of a gap on the scoreboard – but I know they’ll be gutted with the performance they’ve put in today.”
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McGinley preferred to laud his own players rather than his own inside knowledge of Cargin as Errigal’s versatility enabled them to cope with changes from the opposition:
“I certainly wouldn’t be taking credit for that – they have a lot of size and we were re-jigging right up to the throw-in when we saw they team they were going with.
“Knowing them helps, but you need boys to really step up and we moved boys about into different positions.
“We could see the tiredness come into the legs but the boys kept sorting themselves and organising themselves. Cargin were moving men about, rotating around quite a bit, but our boys coped with that well.”
The debate about whether having rest and recovery time as opposed to playing matches certainly swung in the latter’s favour, with Errigal in action for a third consecutive weekend compared to Cargin’s break since their Antrim triumph:
Cargin boss Ronan Devlin was almost at a loss to explain why his side struggled to function - “I don’t think we ever got going” – but did feel that flatness might have been a factor:
“I was talking to Stevie Quinn [Errigal selector] and he said ‘The four weeks killed you’. Maybe he was right – they really did look sharper. Everything that broke, Errigal were round it – that’s not like us.
“Anyone watching us for the first time would say ‘That’s a poor outfit’, that’s the annoying thing.”
McGinley was delighted with his side’s ball-winning, honed in the delayed Tyrone final and the Ulster preliminary round win over St Eunan’s of Donegal:
“Phenomenal – and you can’t buy match sharpness for that component, the famous ‘dirty ball’, that type of thing is very hard to replicate in training…
“Again it’s the boys making that happen, their hunger and effort – but it’s match sharpness too.
“I’m just glad that what we were worried about, the matches causing tiredness, actually probably ended up making us stronger.”
Even so, he and his players will be glad there’s a fortnight until their next match, as Errigal now progress to meet Armagh champs Clann Eireann, who edged out surprise Derry representatives Newbridge.
