Derrygonnelly Harps manager Martin Greene says that his players are relishing this Sunday’s Ulster Club semi-final replay against Cavan Gaels back in Clones.
The Harps battled back from four points in normal time to force extra time and the sides could not be separated after an extra 20 minutes to leave a replay required to decide who will go on to face champions Slaughtneil in the Ulster final.
“It is going to be a tense, tough battle, that’s what we are going to be preparing ourselves for this week, but it is one we are really looking forward to,” said Greene as the Harps look to book their place in a first ever Ulster final.
Derrygonnelly will maybe feel that they could have secured the win at the first time of asking after they wasted some good chances in the second half but Greene states that when the dust settles they are just happy to be still in the Ulster Championship.
“You always have mixed feelings after a drawn game but once it settles we are happy to get another game and we still have a chance to get to an Ulster final. We’ll get the boys prepared and fully focused this week and we will hopefully give it another really good rattle on Sunday,” he added.
The manager also backed forward Paul Ward, who was guilty of missing a couple of big chances from frees in the first encounter, to bounce back when the sides meet again in Clones.
“Wardy has kept us in plenty of games in the past and you just get days when sometimes they don’t go over. 
“In saying that, he still scored five points, he was our top scorer on the day and when a man puts himself in that position to have a go we will always back him. Paul Ward will only come back stronger on Sunday,” said Greene.
What Derrygonnelly won’t want to do on Sunday is allow Cavan Gaels the type of spell that they enjoyed at the start of the second half when they rattled off five points on the spin to move into a four point lead.
“Listen, Cavan Gaels are a good side and you would expect them to have those patches in the game but we’ll anaylse it this week and see why that happened,” he commented.
On the whole though Derrygonnelly did a good job in stifling Cavan’s danger men in and Greene will be looking for more of the same this time around.
“Johnston and Dunne are good players so to keep them to two points between them from play over the course of 80 minutes is good going. The lads did well in there and we will look to try and do that again and then impose our game going forward,” he stated.
And at the other end of the pitch Greene feels that if they can get a goal then it might prove to be a massive score in the game.
“When you look at last Sunday’s game, a goal at any stage of the match would probably have been decisive as both teams were cancelling each other out. A goal this Sunday would be very big for either side and if we can rattle the back of the net it would be a great boost.”
The Harps boss is also looking for his side to impose themselves on the game right from the off.
“It will be a different test and I’m sure there will positional changes and all that. We would like to think that maybe we will be able to impose our strengths on the game from the start. We are very aware of Cavan Gaels’ strengths so we will be trying to negate them and impose ourselves on the game,” he said.
The drawn game again showed that Derrygonnelly are more than capable of holding their own against the best in the province and Greene feels that there is even more to come from his players.
“We came into the semi-final fully expecting to put in a performance and I think we can improve in a lot of areas on the drawn game. We think we are as good as any team in Ulster and it’s up to us to prove it on the pitch,”stated Greene.