Desertmartin step onto a new ladder

By Michael McMullan

DESERTMARTIN coach Ryan O’Kane told the team they were on the last rung of the ladder when they ran out against Greenlough in the Derry decider last month.

When they stepped off, Derry Chairman John Keenan would be there to present them with the cup for the first time in the club’s history.

They have now hit the reset button ahead of Saturday’s Ulster Intermediate quarter final with Donaghmoyne in Inniskeen.

“We’ll just concentrate on this (Donaghmoyne) game, that’s the way we’ve talked about it,” O’Kane said at last week’s Ulster launch.

“We said that at the start of the Derry Championship, the ladder had five rungs. There are only three rungs in this (Ulster) ladder, so hopefully we can reach the third rung.”

When Sean Brady came in as manager at the start of last season, O’Kane mixed tipping away with a bit of reserve football with coaching the team.

In a tough group of three last year that included Greenough and Glenullin, Desertmartin missed out narrowly and watched the ‘Glen go all the way to Croke Park.

This season has been a dream one for the club with their ladies also ending a run of final defeats to take their title as well.

Desertmartin have a taste of Ulster from 2021 when they went down to Cavan side Denn in the junior semi-final after a wasteful hour in Clones.

“We missed 17 or 18 that day, with a lot of shots dopped short and it didn’t just go our way,” O’Kane recalls.

Belief

“Thankfully we have a chance now at intermediate level to hopefully go on. These players are good enough. The club believe in them, the management team believes in them and they believe in each other.”

Another aspect of the belief comes from current Derry manager Ciarán Meenagh who coached many of the club’s players in school at St Colm’s Draperstown.

“He always said he was never managing the St Colm’s team unless there was a core of Desertmartin men,” O’Kane recalls.

“He always said that the talent in Desertmartin was unbelievable and he just could never understand how we couldn’t win.

“Even a couple of years ago, he came out and gave an under-age prize giving and he said exactly the same thing.

“He was asking how Desertmartin can’t win it (the intermediate title) but he just told us to keep going and to keep believing and we eventually got there.”

After the high of delivering their first title and the absolute joy as they took the cup back to a packed club hall, it’s now about the next task.

The size of the task is in the context of Donaghmoyne seeing off a fancied Ballybay side in the Monaghan final.

“We’ll just have to look at videos of them and see who their marksmen are,” O’Kane said last week, as they Desertmartin set out their stall, “ee will just have to see who we need to try and nullify.”