Sheehan expecting tough Swatragh test

By Shaun Casey

BREDAGH boss Donal Sheehan already had one eye on the Derry champions, even before the Ulster quarter-finals took place. He had a sneaky suspicion that if his side could see off Burt, then it would be a team hailing from the Oakleaf County facing them in the semis.

Admittedly, Sheehan had initially been plotting for Kevin Lynch’s, but Swatragh stunned the firm favourites in the county final before seeing off Fermanagh’s Lisbellaw in the Ulster quarter-final, to set up Sunday’s date.

“We meet Swatragh and we’re expecting a tough, hard game,” said Sheehan, whose side battled past Donegal champions Burt in the opening round. “Those Derry boys will gunning for it as much as we will.

“They’ve had a fantastic season, they put in a good championship performance at home at Derry. We’ve been keeping our eye on them, we knew the team coming out of Derry was going to be the one to watch out for.

“We thought it was going to be Kevin Lynch’s so the fact that Swatragh put Kevin Lynch’s away says a lot about Swatragh. We’re going to have a hell of a tough game”

The Down champions looked to have been comfortably in control of their first-round contest when a mix up at the back handed the opposition a goal and that swung momentum back the way of Burt.

But Bredagh responded brilliantly and learned from the harsh lessons of last season when their Ulster journey came to an end after just 60 minutes of action.

“The goal changed everything and that’s what happens, you get these purple patches in matches. We knew it was going to come, though we didn’t know it was going to come maybe in the last five or 10 minutes,” added Sheehan.

“It put us under severe pressure, but our keeper Ian Galway had a great game. He knew to go short instead of going long, it took the pressure off a little bit too and it really helped us.”

He continued: “I think the boys maybe thought they had it won in the last ten minutes, but Burt had different ideas, and they put up a mighty, mighty fight. It was a tough game and that was nothing less than we had expected.

“It went right down to the wire and I’m sure Burt would be extremely disappointed walking away from it, but they put in a mighty performance.

“We got put out in the first round last year against Creggan, it went right down to the wire as well and we lost by a point.

“We learned from that experience and I’m sure Burt will learn from that experience too, but it was a classic game.

“We just couldn’t put them away; they kept coming back and they were very resilient. They showed a lot of grit, and more importantly we showed that resilience and grit just to fight back again and just edged it at the end.”