St. Michael’s coach Dom Corrigan was delighted to see his side progress to the MacRory Cup quarter-finals with victory over neighbours St.Pat’s Cavan. But he is under no illusions about the task ahead with a meeting with competition favourites St. Pat’s Maghera now awaiting his charges.
“The win was great and the ticket to the quarter final was crucial to us. The lads earned it and they are now keen to push on and give a massive performance against Maghera, who are highly fancied to win the whole thing. 
“They know that is going to be a totally different proposition but we will keep working hard and keep looking to improve and we will be going out to give it our best shot.
“You want to be at the business end of it and we are one of the eight teams that are left and there are a lot of good teams gone so we’ll be looking to make the very most of it,” he added.
St. Michael’s made a sluggish start against Cavan and only stayed in touch in the first half thanks to a John Reihill goal. However, they lifted their game in the second half, hitting their second goal early on before producing a strong finish to claim the win.
“I was pleased with the second half but I was very disappointed with the first half,” said Corrigan. 
“We got a poor start to the game, we were very laboured and very pedestrian. We were probably fortunate enough to only be three down at half time given the way we performed and if Cavan had been up by six or seven it wouldn’t have flattered them.
“However, we addressed a number of issues at the break. We pushed up more, got our intensity levels raised and got a good start to the half and pushed on from there. I think what you seen in the second half from St. Michael’s was a true reflection of the team,” he added.
Cavan’s task wasn’t helped by the dismissal of Kyle Tyler early in the second half while Corrigan feels that his sides fitness levels as well as a strong bench were telling factors.
“The fitness levels and the squad played a part in the latter stages. We were able to bring in fresh legs in the final quarter and they injected great energy into the performance and Cavan found it difficult to cope with that. We started kicking some good scores then and I felt we expressed ourselves better,” he said.
Corrigan admits though there are areas that they need to improve.
“Our support play has to improve, our ball winning at times wasn’t good enough, our levels of intensity was poor in the first half so we have a whole lot of things to work on but we are delighted to have that opportunity now over the next week or so.”