RICHIE Donnelly stands at the mouth of the short tunnel in Carrickmore, his own mouth needing looked at.
The left side of his top lip is fairly badly busted. A quick shower and down the road to Omagh Hospital to get it stitched were the height of his Saturday evening plans.
“Ah one of those last tackles there, just a bang,” he responds to a query what happened it.
As it happened, it was when he made one of his two match-defining plays in the final five minutes.
The first was to kick a huge score from 48 yards that drew the sides level as they entered stoppage time.
Edendork came forward and when substitute Conor Cullen got fed a ball in the middle of the goal, the net closed around him. Donnelly provided the hit that dislodged the ball and Cullen’s shoulder accidentally met his lip as a result. He and Trillick played on, with Daniel Donnelly winning the free from which Lee Brennan kicked the winner.
The mouth busted, he hops back to his feet as referee Sean Hurson turns his direction and puts his hand over the gash to disguise it for fear that he’d be sent to the line for the last play.
No two days work out the same. There have been plenty that haven’t worked out. Saturday was one of the good ones.
But the definition of leadership would revolve around needing to put yourself in the position for those things to happen.
“It is something [you’re conscious of]. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve been in the dying moments of big games and I haven’t gone and actively looked it. Whenever you reflect on it, it hurts ye,” he says.
“It is something you consciously think: ‘I need to influence this’, whether you’re a point down or a point up.
“I think that’s the case every minute of the game, you’re thinking where can you be of influence, on the ball or off the ball.
“Definitely you do try hard to put yourself in a position for important plays in the dying minutes.”
The Donnelly brothers have found out enough about injuries in the last few years to last them a lifetime.
Mattie is currently patrolling the sideline at the club games with his full leg in a brace at the minute.
Trillick have lost Mickey Gallagher for the year as well and that had quietened their name in the conversation around who might emerge to challenge an Errigal Ciaran side that look like the county’s strongest back-to-back contenders in a long time.
There’s a huge obstacle in their path before they can even think of that. Dromore were right at the head of the debate and they’re gone, beaten in a thriller by Dungannon.
Trillick have won two championships since 2015 but the feeling has always been that they could have had more, missing out here and there to less than a kick of a ball.
“We have been kinda written off after the two injuries we’ve had this year and even before this game [against Edendork], which to be honest I’m surprised at given the last eight, nine seasons. But we don’t mind, we’re not worried about that stuff.
“After a week we’ve accepted it [the injuries] and got on with what we have. We’ve knuckled down and it’s proven to be a very, very good group and a group that wants to fight right until the end.”
They got their last-minute rub of the green too when Niall Morgan lined up a long-range free and slipped as he kicked it, the ball skidding off to the right and saving Trillick from another 20 minutes at best and elimination at worst.
“I think you do need a bit of luck, definitely, and we’ve had the rub of the green a few times when we’ve got through semi-finals and finals by a point,” said Donnelly.
“But the foundation of all that is a real togetherness and I think we’ve really honed in on that this year. Especially losing Mickey Gallagher and Mattie, we had to turn to the power of the group.
“For the first two-thirds of the season, during the starred games, we dug into our squad and boys have really put their hand up. Now we’ve 20 players with their hand up, they’re really pushing.
“The togetherness we built up early in the season before the Tyrone boys came back, before we got everybody back from injury, has been unbelievable.
“We’ve come in and tried to just fit into that. The togetherness is massive and that’s what’s really standing to us in tight games.”