IT has happened so often now that it is verging on miraculous – and Tiarnan Colhoun hopes Errigal Ciaran’s cool in the heat of battle can stand to them once more when they lock horns with Dr Crokes in Sunday’s All-Ireland semi-final.
A brilliant last-gasp score from Peter Og McCartan saw the Tyrone champions topple Kilcoo in a tense, edgy Ulster decider earlier this month, setting Errigal on the road to a last four clash with the Kerry kingpins in Portlaoise.
But it was not the first time Enda McGinley’s men have come out the right side of a close encounter this year, a rollercoaster run delivering a first provincial title since their manager was playing his part out on the field 22 years earlier.
Ever since edging beyond Pomeroy in their Tyrone championship opener, Errigal have seen off Clonoe after a replay and Killyclogher by a point before just shading Trillick to take the county title.
The same pattern continued in Ulster, where a brace of late scores from Ben McDonnell helped them past St Eunan’s at the death, before a sensational Ruairi Canavan score proved just enough to see off Clann Eireann at the semi-final stage.
That strength of character was evident once more against the Magpies – belief building all the way along as the next challenge awaits at O’Moore Park.
“Enda could have a big thing to do with it, but so would all the management team, then Mark [Harte] and Adrian [O’Donnell] the last few years… they’ve all put the hard work in,” said wing-back Colhoun, who thought he had bagged a first half goal against Kilcoo until it was ruled out because of a square ball.
“We know ourselves we’ve really put in the hard work, and when it comes down to the last 15 minutes, if we’re anywhere near it, a couple of points, we can hopefully come out the right side of it. We’ve done that through the whole championship, that one score gets you over the line - that’s all you need nowadays.
“At the start of the year we all talked about what our objectives were, and Tyrone’s always the main one. If you get out of Tyrone, whatever comes after you’d be happy enough.
“In Tyrone, every team’s up for it, every game’s hard. There’s no bad teams any more in Tyrone, they’re all as good as each other and if you don’t turn up, that’s you out.
“The last eight years we’ve been putting the work in to get to this point.”
And, throughout that time, talk of the class of 2002 has been hard to shake. The emergence of the Canavan brothers, Darragh and Ruairi – sons of former Errigal and Tyrone great, Peter – further cemented that link.
But Colhoun insists that long wait for the Seamus Mac Ferran Cup, and the exploits of some of the club’s all-time greats, has never felt like a millstone around the neck of the current group.
“I wouldn’t really have any family connections to it [the 2002 triumph], but you always hear about it about around the town, if you’re out having a lock of drinks… 22 years, like.
“It’s hard to put it into words what it means, to be honest… we were just delighted to get over the line. It was a long time coming, and it’s great to be back.”
