Conor Glass helps to shatter a Derry club ceiling

Tue, 09 Nov, 2021 - 00:00

Declan Bogue

SOME finals, you cannot bear the thought of defeat at all.

When Maghera’s Glen club came out the other side of the draw from parish rivals Slaughtneil, it gave them even greater motivation to land their first-ever Derry title.

“You wouldn’t have been able to show your face out in public for a couple of weeks,” said their inspirational midfielder, Conor Glass.

“This was the one to win. And no better way to do it than against your neighbours.”

Glass swapped the big-world life of playing Australian Rules Football for Hawthorn at the Melbourne Cricket Ground, for facing players that he could easily bump into on any day around Maghera. And he couldn’t be happier with his decision when Sean Curran blew the final whistle on Sunday.

“It was just pure emotion. I just burst into tears. This is the reason I came home, was to be part of days like this, among the family,” he says. “You can see how much it means, not only to me, but to players, to the fans. This is our first win in the club’s history so it was just pure emotion. We have had hardship over the past five or six years when I was away and it is just great to be able to help these boys.”

The subject of Glass’ involvement and indeed his location has surrounded all conversations about Glen’s chances in the Derry Championship prior to him making the final decision to return home in September 2020.

“I was here for the 2019 final but I couldn’t do anything (he was under contract to Hawthorn and was forbidden to play),” he recalls.

“This is a different group of players today than there was back then but as you saw the performance was very good. The last five minutes you were able to soak in the energy of the crowd which was a good feeling.

“And it’s unusual too, that you were able to soak in an atmosphere in the last five minutes of a county final. We had a good enough lead to do that, so it was a special occasion.” Glass had a pivotal involvement in the decisive play of the game. Tiarnan Flanagan gave him a handpass over the top of Slaughtneil’s defensive press. As he ran onto it, defender Brendan Rogers came out to clean up. Instead of taking the ball in and taking unnecessary contact, Glass instead flicked it on to Danny Tallon, who buried it in the net to leave Glen 1-6 to 0-1 up at the break.

“It’s a game of inches these days and trying to get these one percents. Physically, but mentally too. And that’s what it comes down to too, literally a fingertip to get it through to Danny who had such a good finish in the end, but it comes down to getting your fingertips on the ball."

In such a novel pairing, Glen might have fell into a trap of letting the hype engulf them. While it was old news to serial champions Slaughtneil, Glen still could learn the lessons from the 2019 final defeat.

All week long, there was certainly hype in the community, but it was kept far, far away from the senior football team and the support staff around them.

A tight time frame also helped, according to Glass.

“2019, there was a fortnight between the semi-final and final. You could get caught up in the occasion a little bit.

“This year, you were out the next week so you had less chance to go out into the community. It came to Thursday and Friday and you couldn’t believe the county final was coming round so fast.

“So I guess we had that steely focus of focussing on the weekend, focussing on the game and not getting caught up in the external stuff. We weren’t being dragged here, there and everywhere. The emphasis was on. doing your job the following Sunday.” They now have Donegal champions St Eunan’s in the Ulster club preliminary round clash on November 21st, a game set for Ballybofey.

Under Malachy O’Rourke, they will gather up in midweek and target an Ulster club. They will be hard to stop.