Ederney manager Mickey Cassidy says that for the club, and for him personally, Sunday night’s championship win over Derrygonnelly meant the world.

The victory brought to an end a 52-year wait for a second Senior Championship title for the club, the last success coming in 1968.

There has been heartbreak in between with Cassidy at the helm when Ederney lost the 2006 decider to Enniskillen, and he was back in charge when they lost another final to Derrygonnelly, in 2018, so to finally get over the line delighted him.

“It’s been a long wait and we’ve suffered defeat here a few times. It feels brilliant to have got over the line.

“Look, we are a small club in North Fermanagh, it means everything to the club. I’m a club man – it means everything to me,” he added.

Faith

Despite the setbacks, Cassidy always had faith that this group of Ederney players would eventually reach the promised land.

“We knew there was a championship in this group.

“There was some of them played in ’06, and then in 2018 there was a lot of them that were young boys, but now they are young men, while you have McGrath there who still plays like a young man,” he said.

Cassidy admitted that in the 2018 final they let the occasion get to them, but this time around he explains that they took the whole emotion out of it and focused solely on the game.

“We came here and talked a lot about other things in the lead up to the 2018 final rather than what really mattered, which was the game and the opposition.

“We come here today fully focused on what we had to do, and that was the difference. There was no emotion in it today – it was about playing a game of football, and 70 minutes of real hard work,” he said.

He stressed that the work rate and hunger was crucial to their success.

“We had to have that hunger. We knew we had to come with a high intensity if we were going to beat Derrygonnelly.

“We conceded an early goal but then we got the penalty and from there on we grew. Marty was immense for us, and Conor did a good job with him at midfield.

“We began to control things and again the work rate – we preached and preached away about work rate, and the boys delivered it,” said Cassidy.

Ederney did get pinned in for a period in the second half, but they remained resolute at the back and were then dangerous on the break, their second goal proving the killer blow.

“I thought one of the worst things that could have happened to us was Stephen McGullion getting sent off, and there were ten minutes or so when we were pinned back.

“We knew though we were going to be under the cosh, it was going to be a dog fight, and we had to defend like demons and try to turn them over – we knew we had the pace, and we knew we had the forwards if we could do that and, thankfully, we were able to get the second goal.

“It is just great to get over the line,” he concluded.