Kinawley captain Joanne Doonan says that the feeling at the final whistle on Sunday was better than she could ever have imagined as the Brian Borus finally became Ulster champions after a tense one-point win over Derry side Steelstown in Augher on Saturday.

“Honestly, you just couldn’t write it. As much as you imagine what it would be like beforehand there is no feeling like it, it was amazing seeing the whole girls and the crowd - it was electric,” she said.

Of course, Doonan and her teammates have known the other side of the coin having lost three finals in four years so to finally get there made it that little bit more special.

“It was just heartbreaking those years that we didn’t win because it was close margins; I think it was a point against Emmet Og and then I missed a free to win the game against St. Paul’s and it went to extra time and we ended up losing. So it is just fantastic to get over the line, we maybe made hard work of it but at least we got there,” she laughed.

Kinawley have come through some tight games on their way to the title and Doonan believes that those stood to them on Saturday.

“We have said all year that we have been hardened by a lot of the matches we have had because they have been a lot closer this year and I think we showed our character.

“We knew it wasn’t going to be easy but we kept talking about giving more than we ever gave before and we did that.”

It did not appear to be going well for Kinawley though when they fell six points behind at the start of the second half but the captain says that they always believed that they would come through to win.

“Even though we were behind it never felt that we were losing the run of the game, I still felt that we were always going to win. Don’t get me wrong, when we couldn’t get the scores you were questioning it but we just dug deep and when we started to get on top they started to get rattled and we knew that we had the experience of getting through tough games like this,” she said.

With Ulster in the bag, Doonan says that they will savour this win but then they will focus on giving the All Ireland a rattle.

“This was a big one for us and we will enjoy this week and enjoy the celebrations and then we will get the heads down.

“We know we mightn’t get back here again so we just want to make the most of everything we can and try our best at the All Ireland series,” she added.