MacRory Cup wins are there to be savoured and St Michael’s celebrations went on long into the night on Monday.

By Tuesday afternoon though Dom Corrigan was already focusing on a Hogan Cup semi-final against St Colman’s Claremorris.

It is a title that has so far evaded Corrigan and St Michael’s but he is determined to give it their best shot next Wednesday.

“These opportunities don’t come along too often and whenever they do we have got to we have got to grab them.

“There is no guarantee that you are going to be back at this stage next year, now is our time and we will be aiming to get everybody primed and ready to deliver another top quality performance. We will get them back grounded and firmly into working mode and back out on the pitch. We have a new target now so our full focus now is to make it into an All Ireland final, “ he stated.

St Michael’s produced a superb performance in seeing off Omagh in the final but Corrigan feels there is plenty of room for improvement ahead of Wednesday’s game.

“When we look at it in the cold light of day there were aspects of the game on Monday which we can improve on.

“Even though it was a brilliant performance, in my opinion, it was not the complete performance and it is good to go into your next challenge knowing that there is a couple of areas that have to be worked on.

“There was of course so many positive aspects to our performance as well and we will look to build on those.

“It is all about getting our performance levels right and our target will be to improve and step up from the previous match,” he added.

Corrigan has started his planning for the semi-final and expects to face a typical Mayo side on Wednesday.

“They play very similar to the Mayo county team, they will do a high press on us, they will play a fairly open, expansive game of football and they will be seriously competitive. We will have to do some work on them over the next few days and hopefully get a video on them.

Irrespective though of who we have played all year, our main focus has always been on our own game and performance,” he stressed.

A Hogan Cup is the Holy Grail for every college side in Ireland but Corrigan is not looking any further ahead than the semi-final showdown.

“We would love to win a Hogan, every college out there would love to win one. But that’s for another day, we have to get to a final first, St Colman’s Claremorris are standing in our way and we will be doing everything in our power to get across that hurdle,” he stated.

The St Michael’s season started out back in September and even back then Corrigan was hopeful that he had a group capable of landing the MacRory Cup.

“We felt at the outset this year that we were definitely a top four side and once you are in the top four anything can happen.

“We felt there was quality all around the pitch. We had scoring forwards, we were strong at midfield and we had defenders who were capable of shutting out opposition attacks so that gave us a great chance,” said Dom.

And they showed all those qualities in abundance in the Athletic Grounds on Monday as they came blazing out of the blocks.

“Going into the game we targeted a big start and we got that. It was 0-11 to 0-03 at half time but it could easily have been a bigger margin as we felt we left scores behind us.

“Omagh came out all guns blazing and hit us with two goals and it was really in the melting pot. The thing though that pleased me overall was the quality of football that we played in the first half and the resilience and character that we had to display in the second half. It’s a nice mix and one that you look for in a team,” he commented.

While it was a superb all round team performance, there was some stand out displays within that which Corrigan acknowledged.

“On every team there is always standout performers on any particular day and Darragh’s eight points was eye catching and he made a brilliant contribution. In full flight he is unstoppable. The likes of big Brandon in the middle; somebody said to me after that it was as good a display of fielding as ever they had seen in a MacRory Cup final. And Josh Largo Elis as well was outstanding.

“Those three lads though would be the first to admit that it was what was happening around them that gave them the opportunity to showcase their talents.

“It is about the collective, a real team effort, and I’m delighted for them to have achieved this because this group of players have worked extremely hard,” he added.