Derry desperately hoping to avoid defeat

iIn Derry’s case, it has been a difficult few years.

Sean Kelly of Derry scores his side's first goal despite the attention of Cormac Munroe of Tyrone. Pic: Ben McShane, Sportsfile

The Christy Ring Cup final pairing presents us with one county, Kildare, that has won the competition a record four times and another, Derry, that is desperate to avoid losing a fourth final.

Those are the contrasting backgrounds that tomorrow’s finalists possess and, in Derry’s case, it has been a difficult few years.

This will be the Oak Leaf county’s third final in four seasons and attacker Cormac O’Doherty played in those previous two final defeats, to Offaly in 2021 and Meath last year.

The Offaly reversal, when the Faithful County failed to score a goal but registered 41 points, O’Doherty puts down to one of those anomalies.

“I suppose Offaly themselves know they probably shouldn’t have been there,” said O’Doherty of the Faithful’s slide down to tier three. “They had a disappointing few years and ended up in that position. Since then they’re back in Division 1 hurling so we don’t read too much into that final.”

There is more disappointment attached to last year’s final defeat to Meath, a county that had operated a level below Derry in the 2023 National League. With 10 minutes on the clock, Meath led Derry by 0-7 to 0-0, were 10 points ahead at half-time and stretched the gap to 13 at one stage in the second-half.

Remarkably, Derry got it back to a one-point game in stoppage time and eventually fell to a two-point loss.

“I think it was 15 minutes before we scored,” winced O’Doherty. “Whenever the game was gone for us, we started to play like we can play. But we’ve experience under our belt and hopefully that can help us, that we can start fast and hopefully put ourselves in a good position at half-time and not be chasing the game.”

In one of the last plays of last year’s final, Derry were two points down and had an opportunity for a score but O’Doherty lofted the ball into the danger area instead, in search of a goal. Nothing came of it.

“We knew we would have stolen it,” he acknowledged. “Look, it’s just about not putting ourselves in position this year, about us being the ones in front and having Kildare chase us instead of the other way around. But that’s a big ask too.”

Nobody has won as many Ring Cup titles as Kildare, champions as recently as 2022 and the Lilywhites held their own again this spring in Division 2A while Derry operated in 2B. Kildare also beat Derry in the group stage, by seven points at Hawkfield.

But O’Doherty, part of the Slaughtneil club’s impressive rise over the last decade or so, remains optimistic. In all, he has a remarkable 15 county senior medals.

“I have, 10 in hurling and five in football,” smiled the 28-year-old. “Hopefully they keep mounting up.”

That club success, according to O’Doherty, inspired the entire county and the rising tide has raised interest and brought new supporters out to games.

“There’s still work to be done, football is still the main game and probably always will be but definitely we’ve seen that change in mindset towards hurling,” he reported.

Derry finished their Ring Cup group campaign strongly after the loss to Kildare with big wins over London and Sligo, scoring six goals in the process.

“We’re very comfortable, we’d back ourselves going into Sunday,” said O’Doherty. “Are we desperate to win? I wouldn’t say that but definitely very, very keen to make that step up. We feel like we’re capable of it and we’re ready for that step up so it’s just about doing the business now.”