Errigal Ciaran aren’t as well prepared as they would like, but they’re as ready as they can be for Saturday’s Ulster Club SFC clash with St Eunan’s, according to Joe Oguz.
The postponement of the county final has left the Tyrone champions with just a week to prepare for the preliminary round tie at O’Neills Healy Park.
Victory over holders Trillick was celebrated freely and joyously by the players, with the hearty approval of manager Enda McGinley, but the revelry has been cut short to switch the focus to a Letterkenny side that has had a three-week run-in to the provincial opener.
The Dunmoyle men will draw on every edge that can profit from, including home advantage in Omagh and the power of tradition.
Errigal Ciaran is the only Tyrone club to have won an Ulster title, and they’ve done it twice, but the most recent, in 2003, is beyond the recall of most of the current squad members.
“The tradition is there a lot of the boys wouldn’t remember those teams winning, personally I don’t, but we’re here to write our own history,” said Oguz.
“We have the history as a club, but we’re here to make history ourselves as a group of players, and that’s what we’re going to do, and hopefully that’s what we’ll do this year in Ulster.”
The stats men and video analysts have been scrambling to compile info and data on a St Eunan’s side that triumphed for a record 16th time in Donegal earlier this month.
Their manager Barry Meehan was in Healy Park last Friday night to assess his next opponents, but for Errigal, it was all about the battle to succeed on the home front.
“Our focus was never on Ulster. We just took it one game at a time. The focus was on Trillick.
“We’ll now focus on St Eunan’s and we’ll go out to put in anther performance.”
Midfielder Oguz, a driving force and a chief instigator of the narrow victory over the reigning champions, felt Errigal Ciaran had a point to prove fer losing to the same opponents, after extra-time, in last year’s final.
“After last year’s final a lot of questions were asked from everybody in the county, in Ulster, in Ireland, everywhere, questions were asked of us, but we knew that we had it in us, and this year, we took the sadness of losing last year’s final and brought it in to this performance.
“The hunger is always there. We were in this position two years ago, we were here again last year and just weren’t able to get over the line.
“It’s hunger, hunger, hunger. Questions were asked of us right through the whole championship.
“We were probably disrespected at times in the championship as well.
“But we knew ourselves we were putting in good performances. Teams were matching us, but we knew we had it in the tank, we knew we had the players, a special group of players, great management.”
In the true spirit of the famous Tyrone Championship, this year’s final went right to the wire, two fiercely committed sides separated by just a point at the end of an absorbing contest.
“It’s the sign of two great teams, slugging it out, turnovers left, right and centre, quick attacks, slow attacks, and Trillick pushed us to the very end, and credit to them.
“We knew that we were slow starters, and that’s probably something that we want to work on, but it’s the sign of a good team that we don’t doubt ourselves, we don’t doubt what we’re about, we know we have the players and eventually come 65, 68 minutes on the clock, whatever it is, we know that we have enough to get us over the line.”
