By Michael McMullan

THESE are the days. Emma McFadden looks up at Amy Boyle lifting the cup. The Loughgiel players are surrounded by family and friends. Those who were there during the glory days and the pain.

Katie Lynn’s number four jersey, turned back to front tells the story. Top of the tree in Ulster for a fourth year on the trot. It comes on the back of a 12th Antrim title. These are the days.

“I do love giving people a day out, we all do,” McFadden said after signing young fans’ hurls and posing for photos. The forever memories.

“I love to see the flags and all up and just training under the lights. It’s great to see it. It was a big jaunt for them (Loughgiel fans) coming here today. They’ll enjoy the day out, and there’s another day out for them now too.”

It wasn’t always this way. They looked on through the tears at Sleacht Néill celebrating. Nothing is ever taken for granted. Not now. The semi-final against the winners of Munster will come when it comes. There will be Loughgiel eyes locked in when St Finbarr’s and De La Salle lock horns this weekend.

“We never look too far ahead,” McFadden said. “That’s one thing we don’t do; it’s one game at a time.

“Before our run of 12 (in-a-row), we were looking ahead. We were beat that year, so we know not to do that again.

“They (the Munster champions) have one week in between it and the next game. The year we got to Croke Park, we had only one week in between some of the games. It builds momentum as well.”

The Shamrocks will go in well tested. Dunloy asked plenty of hard questions in the Antrim final. They were able to find the answers. Hitting seven goals in an Ulster semi-final in Sleacht Néill told them they had the camogie in the tank.

On Sunday, with 14 players after Lucia McNaughton was sent off, Loughgiel needed to look deep inside themselves. Clonduff were throwing themselves at everything.

“That was a tough one,” McFadden said. They knew it was coming and winning is all that mattered.

“At this time of year, you just want to go as far as you can and you never want it to end. We are delighted. We dug hard so it will stand to us hopefully next day.”

By half time, Loughgiel had edged themselves into the lead, thanks to a super goal from Róisín McCormack who finished with a personal haul of 1-10.

The golden 10 minutes in the dressing room allowed the Loughgiel camp to reach for the reset button. Panic never came into it.

“We’ve done the work so just had to play the ball wide. We had to spread it, take out that free player that they were going to have. We always knew they were going to have that player back.

“We had to regroup and needed to go back to the basics. That’s something we didn’t do well enough in the first half. It was back to basics; it was about getting them right and progress from there.”

Communication was another key word, looking out for the spare Clonduff player and spraying the ball elsewhere. That was their ticket to victory.

For the Loughgiel group, they just keep on delivering in a parish steeped in both camogie and hurling.

“I’m obviously one of the older ones that have been there,” McFadden added of the age range. “It’s great, you see Marie Laverty there coming in.

“There are a few coming in every year and they just step up. It’s great because they don’t have the nerves. It has been building for years and we just want to go as far as we can really.”