By Michael McMullan

SEAN Cassidy has hurled for Derry long enough to know when they’ve been on the money and Saturday was one of those days.

The Sleacht Néill defender ranks their 2-30 to 1-13 win over Wicklow as one of their best of the season.

The timing of it was perfect. After losing to Meath, the Oakleafers bounced back to beat Tyrone but they needed a result in Celtic Park last weekend.

“It was a good day to pick it like,” Cassidy said minutes after the final whistle.

“After last week (victory against Tyrone) we wanted to come here and just win the game.

“We wanted to get another crack in Croke Park and thankfully we put a performance here today and hopefully we can back it up in a few weeks’ time.”

Derry are now preparing for their fifth shot at winning a first Christy Ring Cup and this year’s decider is a fourth in five seasons.

After victory in their opening league of the season against Tyrone, it took until the latter stages of the campaign to secure their status.

It carried into their Christy Ring Cup campaign but Cassidy felt their lessons along the way stood to them. Defeats to Kerry, Down and Kildare, before their upturn.

“Let’s be honest, with the league, we learned a lot of hard lessons in the league,” said Cassidy, a dual Ulster winner with Sleacht Néill.

“Coming into the Christy Ring, we wanted to take those lessons. As clichéd as it sounds, we literally just had one game at a time and we wanted to build momentum and we treated every team as equally as good as any other.

“In the Christy Ring, if you look at the results, it’s been nip and tuck the whole way through.

“With London, with Meath, with ourselves, with Donegal, (the games) stood by us.

“Thankfully, just week on week, we just kept backing up good performances by everybody.

“The men we’re bringing on are making a good impact there and we’re getting lads back at a good time too.”

Saturday’s win was built on a few foundation stones. A positive start. Cormac O’Doherty hit 1-13 from 14 shots. There was a spread of scorers. Cassidy and his defensive colleagues closed out Wicklow’s threat on the high ball.

“The group is a good mixture of, as we joke about, older boys and younger boys,” Cassidy said of the collective impact taking them back to another final.

“There’s a lot of good wise heads in that group. We’ve lads from different clubs. We always say that the Derry clubs are strong.

“They’re competing in Ulsters at all the different stages. We’ve Swatragh, ourselves (Sleacht Néill) and all the Lavey teams.

“Luckily, we’ve five or six lads from each group and each team. They put their shoulder to the wheel and they enjoy playing for Derry.

“Every day we go out, they want to represent Derry. This group of hurlers here love playing for Derry.

“Every day we go out, we take every game that comes which is reinforced with Johnny (McGarvey – manager) week in, week out.

“Every match is just as important as the next one. We’ve one more big game now. Hopefully, with all these good performances, we can go on just that one step further.”