Former Derry player Paul O’Hea has steered his native Steelstown to the Intermediate final

IT’S not difficult to ascertain just how much it meant to Steelstown to reach the Intermediate Championship final.

On Sunday Steelstown overcame a Foreglen side that had been strongly fancied to clinch ultimate honours, and a club tweet proclaiming “county final here we come” has been ‘liked’ almost 100 times at the time of writing.

Their five-point win has set up a repeat of the 2010 final against Castledawson, where a late point dashed their hopes of a first ever Intermediate title, a defeat that still rankles with many in the club.

It’s a remarkable turnaround in fortunes for the Blues under the tutelage of Paul O’Hea and Eamonn Gibson, who stepped into the breach only six weeks before championship throw-in following a poor start to the season.

O’Hea was part of the team that fell just short against Castledawson, but he says that match will count for little when they lock horns in a fortnight’s time, with star performers Andy Moore and Paul Ferris – among many others – still in their teenage years.

He said: “In all honesty, 2010 isn’t really a factor in this match. We were disappointed to lose by a point but it will have no bearing on this match. Andy was 12, Paul Ferris was 13, Eoghan Bradley and Eoghan Concannon and many others are only young so that connection isn’t there and there’s only a handful of players still playing. It’s a new team, they’re fresh that way and they don’t have hang ups.

“You get nothing for getting to a final, we’ve been in one before [in 2010] and lost it. The aftermath is no good, I’m glad it’s in two weeks and not three as there’s less build-up and we can just get them focused again. Obviously they’ll be looking forward to a big match but we just have to get them focused.”

“They’ll be skipping into training no doubt and they might not skip out of it, they’ve a bit of hard work to do yet. They’ll enjoy the hard work over the next two weeks and hopefully do themselves justice on the day.”
The full interview is available in store today or online here.