By Michael McMullan

IT has been a season of progress for a Derry Ladies team who face Carlow in Sunday’s All-Ireland Junior semi-final in Kingspan Breffni Park.

Since reaching the All-Ireland final in 2017 and winning Ulster the following year, it’s been a constant battle at the lower echelons of Division Four.

That’s why their All-Ireland campaign this season has been so remarkable.

Wins over Antrim, Longford and Kilkenny, followed by a narrow defeat in Offaly, saw them top the group.

Derry’s foundations for such an impressive season were based on making themselves compact and tough to break down.

Fast-forward to the here and now and they are one game away from Croke Park.

Martina McCafferty, a member of their management team, is a native of Derry who moved to Belfast where she transferred to Bredagh. From there she captained the first Down team when it began in 1994, winning an All-Ireland Junior title six years later.

“The thing that has made the difference for this group of Derry players is this belief that we should things simple,” said McCafferty.

“If we developed that as one of our biggest strengths, we knew it would stand to us. It has allowed the team to execute under pressure when they were under pressure.”

Nothing is over-complicated. Joint-managers Seamus Shivers and Greg McArdle have outlined everyone’s role.

“It has created that sense of trust among the players, to be in the right position,” McCafferty continued.

“It’s about communicating with the players around them, behind them and in front of them.”

You don’t need to be talking to McCafferty for long to realise she is a deep thinker. She is a fanatic about sport but someone who can hit the right note: an important cog in a team craving for a breakthrough.

She deploys the motto “simple doesn’t mean easy”, highlighting that Derry are also looking for the one percenters. That all adds up to a work ethic that has taken them up the footballing ladder.

“It’s really developed the confidence in the team,” she said. “The players weren’t really forcing the game, I think keeping it simple allowed the talent in our team to shine through.”

She places value on Derry making themselves defensively sound. It lets them hunt turnovers and bomb forward with pace.

There are also leaders in the squad to steer the young guns who have radiated a brightness that has also made a significant difference.

For all their improvement, it was how they bounced back from the Ulster final defeat to Antrim that has turned their season.

The following Tuesday night, the squad met up at Benone beach. They spent time in each other’s company doing everything but play football. Togetherness and craic filled the coastal air.

WIN

“Just reflecting on it, the girls stood straight back up,” McCafferty said about parking defeat.

“I have this acronym which is called WIN – it stands for ‘what’s important now’ and that’s how the girls looked at it.”

The next step was the important one. An All-Ireland group stage win over Antrim came after an afternoon when Derry were in perfect flow. Everything clicked. Everything.

It was the same when they hit Longford for six goals the following week. In McCafferty’s mind, that was the big game. They needed to put two performances and wins back-to-back.

“A semi-final is brilliant but we want to get to a final now,” she sums up of the mood in the camp.

Carlow stand between Derry and the biggest Sunday in the year, miles away from the bottom of Division Four.

“Carlow will be the toughest test that we will have,” she concludes. “We have come through the toughest test that we think that we could have had beforehand, which is Antrim

“We have stood up and showed it’s not a fluke because we stood up again against Longford. It’s all in front of us, and it’s there for the taking.”