Glackin backing his Derry side to bounce back

By Michael McMullan

DERRY minor manager Kieran Glackin is hoping his young charges can bounce back ahead of this weekend’s All-Ireland quarter-final against Connacht champions Roscommon.

The Oakleafers were beaten by Tyrone in Friday’s Ulster final. After leading at half-time, Derry were closed out by the Red Hands’ ruthless 10-minute spell after half-time.

“It’s a short turnaround,” said Glackin, now in his second season at the helm.

“We’ll have to lick our wounds, rest for a day or two then try and get back in the battle.

“We spoke to them about it in there (the Derry dressing room). We didn’t come out on top today and that’s football; we just have to re-group again.”

Glackin hailed the effort of his team throughout the tight games they’d been in during the season. Their only previous defeats were at the hands of eventual league champions Monaghan and against Cavan in the Ulster Shield final.

Since then, they stepped on the winning path all the way to Friday’s defeat in Letterkenny.

“Tyrone’s performance was excellent and they took massive control of the game,” he said.

“We were in a good position at half-time, we were two up and we probably felt that we hadn’t taken enough of our chances.

“Instead of being in a really good place at half-time, we were in a reasonably good place at half-time and then Tyrone were much better in the second half.

“They took a huge control of the game and fortunately enough for us, our ‘keeper (Michael Doherty) saved two or three goals in that period as well.”

Move on

Glackin spoke of the disappointment in the Derry dressing room after what was the players’ biggest game of their short careers to date. He backs them to put it behind them and move on.

“It is disappointing now, there’s a lot of disappointing lads in there,” he said.

“They try hard, every team does. No team goes out for that collapse in the second-half.

“It happened and they’ll have to just pull themselves up again and get ready to go again.

“Obviously it’s pretty depleted at the moment, but look, they’ll just have to get up and take a couple of days’ rest now and hopefully be ready to go for next Saturday.”

If there are areas of focus for Derry, it will be the spell after half-time when Tyrone caught a hold of the battle in the middle third.

That said, as many senior teams have also found out, finding an avenue out of trouble sounds easier in theory.

“They’re big fielders,” Glackin said of Tyrone’s midfield. “We just couldn’t get a kick-out for a period of time.

“We actually went short a few times in one of those sessions and then gave it away in the transition up the pitch. So that was a bit of a disappointment for us.”