Damien O’Hagan Report

Monday 25.10.2010

Club

Former Tyrone great Damian O’Hagan was the last Coalisland player to captain an O’Neill Cup winning team until Sunday afternoon when Plunkett Kane bridged a twenty year gap by lifting the most prized possession in Tyrone football.

O’Hagan this time was the manager and he admitted that it tasted just as sweet as that success back in 1990.

“I have now experienced winning a championship as a player and a manager and I would have to say the satisfaction today is every bit as good if not better”, admitted the 1986 All Star.

“It’s an unbelievable feeling especially for this panel of players, the supporters and all the people of Coalisland. It means a lot to our parish and it gives us a bit of a pick up from the doom and gloom that is going about.

We know these lads from they were U12 and they have won everything the whole way up their youth careers and we knew that this team had backbone. At halftime I showed them my county medal from 1990 and I asked them if they were going to let anybody take that away from them and the answer was no and I would have to say they answered that on the field which was the important place to answer.”

Coalisland have little time to rest on their laurels as they are straight into Ulster club action this weekend when they play host to Fermanagh champions Roslea back at Healy Park.

“I saw the county final in Fermanagh and was impressed with what I saw of Roslea. It will be a different kettle of fish but we will not worry about that until about Saturday!

Seriously though we don’t want it to end here. This is a very young side, they are gaining in experience and at last I can call them men this evening. I had great belief in them all year and next Sunday we will take it very serious and hopefully we can recover fast for it.”