O'Doherty hails Slaughtneil's belief

CORMAC O’Doherty’s medal collection is a notable one.  Three Derry football titles, four in hurling and an Ulster in each code.  Not forgetting his underage haul. This current winning run is infectious and feeds into the rest of the panel.

Usually O’Doherty takes all in his stride but his voice and his language was a lot different on Sunday.  “Speechless after that,” uttered an overjoyed O’Doherty.  This was the pinnacle but it didn’t happen overnight.

“Whenever we were growing up at underage, all we were ever focussing on was that Slaughtneil wasn’t at the top in Derry – we had to put us to the top of Derry.

“Over the last couple of years we showed we were capable of winning Ulster and this year the belief in the team, the belief in the panel, the belief within the club is unbelievable.  Today we brought our A game and it proved that Derry teams can play with Ulster whenever we want to.”

Over the last 12 months Slaughtneil have bounced back but O’Doherty put this title down to one single word.

“Belief,” he stressed. “For a couple of years we got close. There is a difference between thinking you can win it and actually believing you can win it.  From minute one today every man believed they were better than the player they were facing and it showed.”

“Mickey (McShane), Cormac Donnelly and those boys have us hurling well.  It was a great performance and a great victory.”

With Loughgiel emerging from Antrim, many people spoke of their freshness and a new impetus.  O’Doherty disagreed.

“That’s the thing, how can you not be hungry for a title you have never won before? Everybody said Loughgiel would be hungry because they haven’t been there in three years. 

“They have got their Ulster title – we hadn’t.  It didn’t matter what they were going to do today, they weren’t going to stop us.”

In the closing stages of the camogie game the hurlers headed to the dressing room to prepare but O’Doherty urges the girls to come back stronger next week.  “Hopefully the camogs can go next Sunday and join us.  They seemed to have been the best team and hopefully they can complete the collection next week.

“Everyone knows what this club is about.  This week has brought us closer together and today showed when we pull together what we can do,” O’Doherty added.

After years waiting in the wings, O’Doherty was ready to soak it all in and was looking forward to that journey to Emmet Park and another successful homecoming.

“It’s always a special feeling from when we won the football (title), the hurling and the Ulster (football) – every night there are more supporters coming. It just gets that wee bit better each time.  It is special, special times.”