Derry hurling manager McGarvey savours special day

By Niall Gartland

SOMETIMES there is no dream ending. Sometimes there’s just a sequence of hard-luck stories and a profound sense of incompleteness.

But happily for Derry hurlers and their manager Johnny McGarvey, redemption finally arrived on a historic day at Croke Park.

Having lost five previous Christy Ring Cup finals – including successive defeats in 2023, 2024 and 2025 – they reached the promised land with a stunning victory over Kerry on Saturday afternoon.

It was, according to McGarvey, the best-ever performance from a Derry hurling team at intercounty level. It’s no idle boast.

Speaking on Tuesday, McGarvey was savouring a well-earned day off. He says the team celebrated with appropriate gusto over previous days, but they didn’t go completely bonkers either.

“I actually take them to my house on the day after all finals. I think it’s nice, we get them something to eat and they’re all together.

“It’s funny, there have probably been madder parties after defeats. On Sunday, it was more of a sense of relief among the players.

“At the same time, it’s been great and they’ve enjoyed themselves.”

McGarvey has had to contend with a mammoth turnover of players during his tenure, which commenced in January 2023.

“He’s used 70 players across his four seasons, though there are mainstays who backbone the team. Mainstays like captain Cormac O’Doherty, whose sheer delight was evident as he proudly held aloft the Christy Ring Cup on Saturday.

“That’s it, for somebody like Cormac, who has been there for a decade, to have suffered the heartbreak of seeing somebody else walking up those steps three years in a row.

“All that emotion came out of Cormac on Saturday – he’s absolutely over the moon.”

McGarvey continued: “Guys like Cormac were absolutely devastated for Meehaul McGrath, who didn’t get to play. Eamon Conway, Sean Kelly, Sean ‘Tad’ [Cassidy] have been there the whole time. To see them get their reward is so satisfying.

“Some players walked away, those guys stayed and dug it out. As I’ve said quite a few times, it wasn’t all good days this year, but that one moment at the end of 75 or 80 minutes at Croke Park was worth every minute of it.”

Then there’s Connor Melaugh, who starred with a 2-2 contribution in his first-ever start for Derry at senior intercounty level.

“His performance was emblematic of a ferociously determined combined effort.

“Connor came on as a sub in the group game.

“He’s a young lad from Lavey, and he tore his hamstring in an U20 friendly before Christmas, and missed about 16 weeks over the head of it.

“He was coming back the week before the U20 final, and played in it.

“He has serious pace and we felt maybe Croke Park was the stage to let him loose and see what we’d get out of him. He’s a great cub and thank God it worked out for him.”

He added: “I think what surprised everyone at the weekend was that we out-hurled Kerry.

“Sháa [Cassidy] scored a goal and four points, Decky Foley got four points, Conor Coyle popped up with three from play from centre-back.

“From a tactical point of view, we just went at them. They didn’t see it coming, and I’d say outside our group, nobody saw it coming.”

And while McGarvey was keen to lavish praise on his players, there was also an acute sense of personal satisfaction after the near-misses of previous years.

“I do feel unbelievable relief. The boys and the county aren’t putting you under any pressure, but you feel it yourself. You have been there, and had lost the three finals.

“In sport, it doesn’t tend to end well. Very few people get the dream ending, and we were well-aware of that.

“Every time we got to the final, we thought we might never be in another one. We had to take our opportunity and thankfully we did.”