New Derry senior manager still has one eye on Kerry in Minor All-Ireland final

New Derry senior manager Damian McErlain still has the matter of an All-Ireland final to navigate before taking up his new role.

Damian McErlain believes his minor team have what it takes to stop four-in-a-row chasing Kerry in the All-Ireland final.

It comes after a three point win over Dublin in Croke Park on Sunday that saw the Oak Leaf through to the national final for the first time in ten years.

Standing in their way on September 17 will be the Kingdom, but McErlain insists that the squad they have at hand has all the necessary attributes.

“This is a strong group to be honest. Their mentality, their physicality, their ability – it’s probably the strongest group we’ve had. It comes from a multitude of things. I suppose the management’s in their third year of experience and that helps as well. The maturity of the group has been mighty,” the manager insisted.

“After each win that we’ve had the boys have been down and grounded again on Tuesday night. Even when we won Ulster there was no sitting in a cloud for the weeks, we absolutely went back at it. We gave Sligo the utmost respect, and the same today, and of course now we’re in for a mighty challenge now in three weeks time against the Kingdom.

“It’s great to have the thoughts. Look we’re going to final and we’re not going just to take part. We want to give our best. We think its going to be an epic battle. It’s something that we had targeted at the start of the year. Ulster was first but certainly an All-Ireland final was second. We’ve encountered Kerry in the last two years on the way to the final and we seen that they were going to be on the other side of the draw if we kept winning. Thankfully that has come to bear, and we really need to get our house in order over the next two weeks and go for it,” he added.

Reflecting on Sunday’s display that saw a Lorcan McWilliams led Derry push through in the final quarter to silence the Dublin crowd, McErlain agreed that the character from his squad was something to be proud of.

“The boys showed serious desire. We tightened it up a bit in the second half in the sense that we felt they were getting through our defence far too easy in the first half and we weren’t protecting enough. We had to get more bodies back across the ’45 whenever we lost the ball on the turnover. It gave our full-back line a bit more protection. We changed the boys about a bit in the full-back line and each one of them had a strong second half,” he explained.

“They showed immense character every time the ball came at them. At All-Ireland semi-final stage you’re dealing with top quality players in the opposition and I was really pleased with the last fifteen minute – the composure under intense pressure, especially on the day that it was with it so humid out there. The energy levels were seriously sapped. Our decision making and our score taking was absolutely superb. Then, of course, we’ve talked about the squad all year and it has been immense to have options to come in – and every single one of them made an impact there.”

The manager continued: “There wasn’t a sense of panic. You just say ‘right, what else can we do? Where are the holes here?’ Thankfully we seemed to make the right decisions and when boys were tired we had the likes of Marty Bradley who came in the last ten minutes and was superb. Again, we’re going up the road tonight having used 21 players and that’s just pure class for a group that has trained so hard for the guts of twelve months.”