By Michael Devlin

Danny Heavron says Magherafelt O’Donovan Rossa were lucky to be crowned Derry senior football champions ten days ago, but not by the nature of their one-point county final win over Glen.

The Rossa's led the charge throughout a tense, tight affair at Celtic Park and held sway at halftime, but the Watty Graham's fought their way back to trail by just one as the contest came to a climactic finish.

Glen looked poised to level the tie with one final attack but seconds later the final whistle sounded, just before Ciaran McFaul's effort sailed between the posts, and Magherafelt had their victory.

They certainly held the upper hand over the course of the afternoon and were deserving of their triumph, but there’s no denying full time couldn’t have come at a better time for the Rossa's.

Team captain Heavron explains though the only fortune was being able to bring the John McLaughlin Cup to the south Derry town for the first time in 41 years, thronged in scenes of jubilant celebration.

“We were very lucky to win it, and by that, I mean we were lucky to achieve what we achieved and see what the celebrations meant to the town.

“We definitely felt like we were in control of the game. It came down to a point, but we definitely felt like we were the better team on the day.”

There was an outpouring of emotion in the game’s aftermath as Magherafelt got their hands on the silverware after a four-decade wait. Heavron’s post-match interview to BBC’s Thomas Niblock was a perfect evocation of everything it is to win a county championship.

“We enjoyed it for sure, but we were back to training last week, and you just look to the next one,” says Heavron determinedly. “We didn’t think we’d be in Ulster but now we are in it, we are hoping to give a good account of ourselves.

“Credit to our managers, it was straight back down to earth again. You have to be driven, and we are driven.”

The Derry roll of honour from 2010 up to this year was book-ended by Coleraine Eoghan Rua, with Ballinderry and then Slaughtneil enjoying successive winning runs in between. A fiercely competitive and notoriously hard to win championship, there are no shortage of quality challengers yearly in Derry.

Magherafelt though had the belief that this would be the year they came out on top, according to Heavron.

“You’ve got Ballinderry, Slaughtneil, Coleraine there, its very tough, and that’s a credit to Derry. Magherafelt, I wouldn’t say we felt we were a talented enough group that we could do it, but we always believed we could do it.

“We have had great underage success, and we restructured it to bring it through. It’s starting to show with a few young players coming through onto seniors. But sometimes it’s not all about winning, it’s about progressing players, and bringing young kids on who maybe aren’t the best at Under-12 through on up to minors and seniors.”

Magherafelt’s Ulster Club Championship campaign now begins with a quarter-final meeting with Down champions Kilcoo on Sunday at Pairc Esler.

After losing their six-year grip on the county title to Burren in 2018, Kilcoo recaptured the Frank O’Hare Cup by beating Warrenpoint, but have been blighted by a few near misses in the provincial competition in recent years.

While their Derry-native management team of Mickey Moran, Conleith Gilligan and Paul Devlin will no doubt be aware of the threat posed by their fellow county men Magherafelt, Heavron admits the Rossa’s have not been concentrating too much on the Down men, rather ensuring everything is in perfect working order within their own camp.

“To be honest we don’t know much about Kilcoo, we were only looking to Glen. This past two or three days we have been trying to zone in on Kilcoo, and over this week we will be doing that to try to get a few things right and give a good account of ourselves.

“We’ve been getting our feet on the ground, worrying about ourselves and getting everybody fit again, that was our priority. Everybody seems to be good and well, so that’s a positive.”