Abbey top of the pile

By Dáire Bonnar

ABBEY Vocational School joint-manager Jamie Brennan was full of pride as his side won the All-Ireland Schools ‘B’ final in Clones on Saturday.

The Donegal Town school won, 1-15 to 0-9, against Ashbourne Community School to become just the third Donegal side to win the Paddy Drummond Cup and the first in over 40 years.

“I’m just so proud of the lads, they were absolutely phenomenal,” Brennan said after full-time.

“We knew they would have a purple patch but it was a matter of sticking to what we worked on. The boys really trust in what we do and the work we put in and that stood to them, they had real belief.

“The team has a lot of Four Masters players who are used to playing big games and that stood to them, but it was great coming through the town (last week) with the flags, you really have to step back and enjoy all that.

“They’re a very humble and hard working group and it was really nice to work with them. It’s the first proper managerial stuff I’ve done with Stuart (McFadden) but you couldn’t ask for a better crew.

“We knew we had a good side but we took it game by game, we had lads coming home from holidays skiing and we never thought it would crossover with an Ulster final, and here we are today. We never got too far ahead of ourselves and the reward has come for them.”