Ulster glory is in the past: O’Kane

By Michael McMullan

GLENULLIN manager Michael O’Kane was both annoyed and heartbroken after Sunday’s All-Ireland final.

Trailing 0-9 to 0-1 at half-time, the Derry champions did finish on the front foot in the final quarter, hitting late scores with the result all but cemented.

O’Kane was visibility distraught and wasn’t looking back on a memorable 2025 that brought a first Ulster title in their 100th year.

Hurt is raw. When the dust settles, Glenullin will begin the new season in Division One with a return to the Senior Championship.

“Disappointment, there’s no other word for it,” O’Kane said when asked if the club could take any solace at ticking the boxes they ticked last season.

“Eaten bread is long forgotten,” he said. “It’s been four weeks or five weeks since we won Ulster.

“It doesn’t bother me anymore that we won Ulster. I’ve no feelings about it either way. It’s done; it’s in the past and our players felt like that too.

“Our overriding emotion is disappointment. We don’t care what happened last year, that was our mantra going into the game.

“Last year’s been and gone and obviously we just didn’t play well enough.”

As well as losing Donal O’Kane to a serious hamstring injury over Christmas, Glenullin were not able to avail of the full array of Ryan McNicholl’s repertoire.

With 7-22 to his game across 10 championship games, a bout of flu floored Glenullin’s ace attacker.

“Ryan got out of his bed this morning to play that match,” O’Kane revealed.

“He hasn’t been out of bed since Wednesday. It’s terrible timing for the lad himself, he’s worked his way back from a cruciate injury and then to get a flu.

“We kept thinking he was getting better, but he’s done nothing all week.

“The game (semi-final win over Strokestown) last week took a lot out of him and then eventually getting a flu on Wednesday, just knocked him for six and you could see that in him.

“He’s been the best player to me in the Intermediate Championship this year that I’ve seen, but he just wasn’t at himself today.

“It’s disappointing for the lad himself. I’m really heartbroken for him because he was made to play in Croke Park, but he just didn’t get to show himself today, but he’ll be back, whether with us or with Derry, he’ll definitely be back.”

With virtually all the Glenullin squad tasting Croke Park for the first time, O’Kane insisted nerves didn’t play any part in his side’s slow start.

As they defended deep in their plan to keep the Munster champions to under 15 points, they failed to translate the limited possession they had into anything more than Chrissy Dempsey hitting their only point of the first half.

“I didn’t think it was,” O’Kane replied in relation to any effect of nerves.

“I thought we prepared brilliantly for the occasion. It’s early now, but I wouldn’t have changed anything we’d done in the lead-up to the game, how we prepared this morning.

“It’s easy to say after, we should have done this or should have done that, but I was very happy with our preparation.

“Going out on the pitch, I felt we were in good shape. We just were so poor on the ball.

“I think we won both kick-outs; those four pillars of the game that we talk about: our own kick-out, their kick-out, we won both of those.

“We had more shots than them, we had more goal chances than them. They were the better team and that’s something we left to live with.”