Johnny McGarvey - 'There's plenty of talk about the referee but we didn't play well enough'

Devastation didn’t come close to the atmosphere in the Derry dressing room as their sixth tilt at getting hands on the Christy Ring Cup again came up short.

While there was much frustration towards referee Pádraig Dunne and Derry being awarded 11 frees to London’s 25, manager Johnny McGarvey admitted his side didn’t hurl well enough.

“There's plenty of talk about the referee but we didn't play well enough,” he said, speaking outside the Derry dressing room door, inches from a gutted playing Oakleaf camp.

"We were second to the breaks, which was very disappointing. The ball didn't stick enough inside. I don't know why. It's not something that we've had a massive problem with. We didn't play well enough, but it’s just totally devastated in there, it's a rough place to be in there.”

Derry trailed 0-4 to 0-1 before battling back level on four occasions in the first half. When David Devine batted London’s 26th goal of the season, Thomas Brady’s bullet to the London net was the perfect answer.

“At half-time, we were three down, we hadn't played particularly well, but it wasn't the end of the world,” the Derry boss added.

“We came out at the start of the second half; we probably should have got two scores but overdid things with the ball on both occasions. They went down and maybe got the first two scores of the half, and then it was back to five. It was very frustrating.

“We probably didn't really get the momentum that I thought we should have got in the match, maybe until three or four minutes to play, plus injury time.

“It just never seemed to click and every time it looked like there was a free that went against us that broke the momentum. It was just very, very frustrating.”

Derry led for just four minutes in the entire game, both from Cormac O’Doherty points and both two minutes each.

The second was in the 52nd minute with London hitting six scores in the next 13 minutes but Derry did bring it back to within a point before London stretched it back to three.

Derry’s last throw of the dice was a close range free, deep in stoppage time. O’Doherty drilled the shot but it was stopped by the London wall.

From the 65, the ball was dropped short and in the seconds of pinball that ensued, referee Dunne sounded the final whistle. It was shades of the 2023 final, in the same corner of Croke Park, when Derry was stopped in their tracks with the ball still in the danger zone.

“I literally just said it in there,” McGarvey said of the last play. “Don't get me wrong. It was far enough, there was a lot of players around. I just don't think you can blow a match up when the ball is in the mix, in that area.
“The free that he gave them in injury time, it took a minute and a half to hit the free. I know he played a minute extra, but them things are important. That ball broke. It looked like we were going to gain possession and the match was blown up. That's just the way it is.”

While outside the Derry dressing room wasn’t a place for discussing if a three-year term would be extended, McGarvey said it would “take a fair bit” to put him off.

It would come down to the players. The Derry boss said it was all about the group and what would take them over the line.

“As I told them there, there will be plenty of people with plenty to say and there'll be plenty of people to stab them in the back. Especially within Derry Hurling, they're under no illusions about that,” McGarvey said, in reference to lifting the players from defeat

“I don't think you need a cup to say that you're a good team. It would be lovely and we'd love to win this cup.

“The players in there, they'll be back to do it again. Those boys are an absolute credit to our county and the effort.

“They just put everything that they put into this. Some days you don't get your rewards and that's hard to take.

“The reality of sport is somebody has to get beat and you have to dust yourself down and you go again.”