IT’S Tuesday afternoon and the partying is over but Derrygonnelly captain Shane McGullion is still ‘on cloud nine’.

McGullion’s late goal put the seal on yet another championship success for the Harps but this was his first as captain.

“I’m over the moon. It is a great privilege to be captain, I never thought I would. I’m on cloud nine at the minute,” he stated.

Semi-final defeat last year was something that drove Derrygonnelly on in 2023 and McGullion also says that he was determined to come through the final for his brother Stephen who was ruled out after suffering a broken ankle against Kinawley in the semi-final the previous week.

“To be fair to Stephen he did it on the Saturday but he was at training on the Tuesday night driving everybody on. Whenever I was injured and missed the final in 2021 he said to me that he would try his best to win it for me and I just wanted to repay that favour to him because there is nothing worse than being on the sideline and you can’t do anything,” said Shane.

In the game itself, he felt that they got off to the ideal start as Gary McKenna netted early on and he believes that start was crucial in helping them deal with the sending off of Aidan McKenna midway through the first half.

“We got off to a good start and looking back we had a nice wee cushion whenever Aidy got red carded so it gave us a wee bit of leeway that we could actually set up, we didn’t have to push for many scores, we just needed to keep the scoreboard going.

And he said that control was the big message that came out of the changing room at half time.

“We said at half time that we were going to have to try and control it because if we make it frantic they are going to have men up. I watched some of the game back this morning and I can’t get over how good our defence was. We were very compact and they didn’t really look like getting in for many goal chances apart from Ultan’s shot. The control by Conall and Ryan around the middle was just fantastic,” he added.

There was though that big scare in injury time when Kelm had that shot that thumped off the bar with only two between the sides.

“I tried to jump on his boat but he still got it away and I looked up and it hit the crossbar. It is just fine lines because if that went in it was their game. They really pushed us back in the second half.”

Soon after though McGullion had wrapped up the game with his goal and with it a league and championship double.

“We knew we got a lucky break with Ultan’s shot and then I got the goal and that gave us another cushion and that was it.

“Look, the club is over the moon. I was chatting Donal (Corrigan, chairman) and he was the happiest man I had seen in a long time. To the committee it means everything to get back on top.

“To win the double is special, you never really think about it at the start of the year, it is all about the championship, but winning the double makes it all that wee bit more special,” he stated.

The Harps focus will now turn to Ulster and a meeting with Down kingpins Kilcoo in Brewster Park with the sides needing no introductions having met twice in recent years.

In 2019 we felt we should have got something out of that game but in 2021 they were the far better team. We are going to be up against it but we’ll give it our best shot. We’ll go in with confidence but we also know the ability that Kilcoo have,” said McGullion.