Derrygonnelly Captain Ryan Jones believes that the hurt of last year’s final defeat to Ederney was the driving force for Derrygonnelly as they got their hands back on the New York Cup with victory over Enniskillen on Sunday.

“Any day you go out and lose a championship final it hurts a lot, and we bottled that up; it wasn’t a nice feeling but sometimes you need a reality check like that and that’s what we had, and I think we worked twice as hard to get over the line.

“No matter what teams threw at us, we knew we still had the resilience to drive on and react the right way and we had to do that in lots of games throughout this year so I think we are worthy champions,” said Jones.

“We’re delighted – last year we were beaten fair and square in the Final by Ederney, and it has been a long winter thinking about it and what went wrong, but we got back down to work in January or February, and we worked really hard and every man knuckled down.

“We have a squad of 33 or 34 and we all drove each other on.”

Having beaten last year’s champions Ederney, as well as the fancied Kinawley and Enniskillen sides, the Harps have thoroughly earned their title success.

“I suppose we did it the hard way this year. We had Ederney in the first round and it was a titanic battle and a replay, and then Kinawley and a replay, and then Enniskillen today – in the first half, they asked us a lot of questions too.

“We’re just delighted to be back at the top table and to be Fermanagh Champions again,” he added.

Jones admits that Enniskillen caused them problems early on, but the Harps got to grips with things to lead by two at half time before taking a stranglehold on the contest in the third quarter.

“In the first quarter, Enniskillen moved their team around a bit and that caused us a couple of setbacks with some of their play.

“I think though we still weathered the storm well and reacted well to go in two points up at half time, which was a decent margin.

“But we know in the third quarter, that’s ‘the Championship quarter’, and we really pushed on and once we got that gap I knew we had the know-how then to see the game out and get over the line.

“Enniskillen battled all the way, but I think that was our best performance of the year all round,” said Jones.

Indeed, he felt that their experience was telling on the day.

“We have been here seven years in a row, and you can’t beat that experience but at the same time you can only rely on that experience if you work hard and I think we did both.

“We worked hard and we also had the quality and the experience to get us over the line.

“We have a massive squad as well – boys came off the bench and contributed, and some boys would have been disappointed that they didn’t start, but it was a serious effort from everyone.”

The win completed a league and championship double but the season doesn’t end there as they now eye up an Ulster Club encounter against Tyrone champions Dromore in Carrickmore on Sunday, December 5.

“I was up at the Tyrone County final last week, and in the second half Dromore tore Coalisland apart.

“They have had to go through Tyrone the hard way as well, with the preliminary round and extra time in a few games.

“We haven’t thought about Dromore – we just wanted to get over the line today – but it is two weeks until that game, and we know that it will be a serious challenge, but sometimes that’s when we perform at our best, I think,” he concluded.