Derrygonnelly forward Paul Ward secured his sixth senior championship medal on Sunday and his fourth in a row but he is not willing to rest on his laurels.

This is a golden period for the Harps and Ward is keen to make the most of it when they are on top of their game.

“Derrygonnelly had slogged long enough with men who had put in every bit as much effort as us over many years and they never enjoyed the same success so you have to make the most of it when it is here,” he said.

“You just look on every year as a new year, you can’t get enough of winning and it drives you on. We know ourselves that it is not going to last forever so we are just determined to enjoy and win as much as we can.”

Next on the list for the Harps will be the Ulster Club. It took Derrygonnelly a couple of years to find their feet at that level but last year they reached the semi-final and Ward feels that they have a squad that can compete with the big guns in the province.

“If you are winning in your own county you want to keep making the step up. Probably the first two years was about finding our feet and then last year there was what ifs and could have beens but we didn’t make it in the end up and that’s the bottom line. I think we have a squad that can make an impact in Ulster and can be competitive with any team. We have strength in depth in our squad which is needed and maybe we didn’t have that last year. We have Scotstown or Ballybay which is not going to be easy but we feel if we perform we can match anyone,” he added.

Derrygonnelly were winning games this year while not at their best but on Sunday they hit top gear to sail to the title.

“We knew that the work-rate and intensity was there and we just had to add that final bit which I think we did. We know we weren’t hitting the heights of maybe where we wanted to and we were maybe annoyed with out own play but then again you were never going to run away with quarter-finals or semi-finals against an experienced Roslea side or a derby game against Devenish.”

Ederney went into the game on the back of high scoring wins over Belcoo and Erne Gaels but their attack struggled to make an impact against a strong Derrygonnelly defence.

“We had watched them against Belcoo and Belleek and we knew the threat they have, especially up front, but our defence is exceptional in my opinion. We have three inter-county players in there and Shane McGullion who I think will also be an inter-county player. You have Garvan McGinley who is brilliant and Neil Gallagher who had another tremendous game. You then have the likes of Deccy, Lee and Ryan working back and look we are physical, we know when to tackle and we are hard to breakdown. We knew we couldn’t give Ederney the space they got in other games because they are dangerous and have a great goal threat which we learnt in the league semi-final last year.

“We worked this last number of weeks in limiting that space and then counter-attacking at pace which I thought we did. We were also patient on the ball and we got our first goal by working the ball out from the corner and then hitting the space in behind. It was about limiting their space and then maximising the space left behind their midfield after that,” he added.

And the Harps were clinical when their chances arrived.

“Our stats at half time showed that we had 11 shots and scored eight and I don’t think we missed too many in the second half either which is pleasing,” stated Ward.