Bradley satisfied to end long wait

By Katrina Brennan

IT was a case of job done, as ‘ugly’ as it may have been for Enniskillen and their manager Simon Bradley.

“We set out at the start of the year to try and do as best as we could without the county lads and it put us in a great spot and we kicked on in the league and had some good wins and had some one-point squeezes,” said the Gaels’ boss. “But, at the end of the day it doesn’t matter what the game was like, it’s in the history books now and it’ll be totally forgotten, so we’ll take the win.”

It was a poor spectacle for a showpiece final which Bradley readily agreed was the case;

“I’d say it was awful. I was chatting to Barry Faulkner, who was up from Kingscourt, and he was saying it was dire stuff but at the end of the day, it’s about getting a win in the final.

“We’d like to play better football, we’ll certainly be trying to do that in the championship but it doesn’t always work the way you want it to work.”

The first half was littered with mistakes and Enniskillen had two goal chances go a begging, thanks to a goal line clearance and a fine Jack Kelly save.

They were guilty of four wides before the break, not to mention a few that dropped into the box and into the ‘keeper’s hands.

Bradley said the message to his team in the changing rooms at the interval was clear as they went in level with Derrygonnelly;

“I said to them they were bloody lucky to be level, that’s what I said to them,” he mused. “What we said was ‘you can’t change the past but you can try and manage the outcome.’ So, we set a target for scores and we didn’t quite achieve it but we thought that 13 points wouldn’t be far off getting us the win.

“But, in fairness to Derrygonnelly, obviously they were short a few men there tonight but by God they put in a shift for their club and a point in it with five minutes to go, you couldn’t ask for any more.”

As the championship lurks around the corner, leaking two goals is not something Bradley will want his team to make a habit of; “I’ll blame Pepper (Barry Monaghan) for that one,” quipped Bradley, “he played a brilliant advantage, most referees would’ve give him the 14 yard free, but in fairness to him, I thought he did the whole game very well.

“Both goals were poor from our point of view but goals in finals are crucial, we were lucky tonight that we got away with it.”

With Kinawley, Teemore and Belnaleck in Enniskillen’s championship group, you sensed attention will quickly turn to the main event;

“We’ll go and enjoy this one because we haven’t had one in 23 years but we’re certainly going to try and win the championship this year and what that game does tonight is that it tells all the other teams in the competition that the championship is wide open.”