Ballinderry added the SportTracker Ulster League title to their bulging trophy cabinet with a 0-13 to 0-10 win over Glenullin at Watty Graham Park, thus avenging last year’s 10-point defeat to the Mitchell’s in the championship semi-final.
By Chris McCann
sport@derrypost.com
An extraordinary haul of ten points from Paddy Bradley stole the show that day in Bellaghy, but yesterday it was the turn of his county team-mate Conleith Gilligan to shine, turning in an action-packed display from number ten that brought him seven points and the man-of-the-match award.
But the Shamrocks forward insisted after the game that avenging that famous defeat of last year was not the primary objective for Ballinderry and magnanimously praised Glenullin’s achievements in 2007.
“It was never about that. It’s a new year, a clean slate for everybody and the best team in the county won the county championship last year. They beat all the best teams in it.”
Ballinderry take the victory into a league campaign that starts on April 20 with the visit of newly-promoted Dungiven to Shamrock Park, but Gilligan says he won’t read too much into the win at such an early stage of the new campaign.
“It’s very early and I suppose not many people will read much into this but you just have to take the games as they come.
“It’s always going to be difficult starting back into the league but our league form has generally been very good. We’ll just take it one game at a time. We were disappointed with last year but that’s gone, it’s a clean slate now so we just have to hope we get ourselves together for the start of the league,” he finished.