City of Derry Head Coach Richard McCarter on Irish Junior Cup victory over Connemara

City of Derry Head Coach Richard McCarter gives his verdict on the Irish Junior Cup victory over Connemara at Judges Road.

Transcript

00:00 Richard, the last time he's played in the Irish Junior Cup it was a very dramatic game,

00:06 13 years on, another very dramatic day but he's got the win.

00:09 Yeah, that last sentence is the crucial part. A win is a win at the end of the day and we

00:14 haven't played well today if we're honest. To score 31 points and not be happy but being

00:19 the quarter final draw is the main thing so we have to take that positive from it.

00:23 He's well on top among the forwards, both sets of back lines look very, very dangerous

00:29 but there were plenty of errors too.

00:30 There were a lot of errors and every time we scored you felt there was a bit of a dead

00:35 end between the two teams but we conceded literally immediately after the three tries

00:39 that we scored. It was always a fairly tight knit game and they've been tucked right to

00:42 the end and I think if the game had gone on another few minutes we'd have been really

00:46 hanging on by the coattails but as I say we showed a lot of character and guts even if

00:50 it wasn't a great performance and as I say to be in the quarter final I would rather

00:54 be in Irish shoes than come back down the road with a heroic defeat like they have.

00:58 Cup ties are for winning and as you say it was probably more to do with the actual character

01:03 of the team displayed than any great rugby team.

01:05 It did and you're going to have games like that, it's not always going to be free flowing

01:09 and maybe not giving Connemara enough credit, I thought they were a very good side, they

01:14 were well drilled, they played good rugby and they put us under more pressure than most

01:18 teams have so far this season so you're going to get games where you have to grind out results

01:22 and we certainly had to do that today.

01:23 Now you're into the, as you mentioned, a couple of victories, you all of a sudden could find

01:28 yourself in a semi final or final this competition so you've got the win, move on to the quarter

01:33 finals, put it on the back burner for a week or two?

01:36 Yeah that's the way we have to look at it, I think the next round is in the middle of

01:39 November so we've got a few matches in between but we'll not care how we got there in the

01:45 next round, it's the fact that we're in the draw and we're in the quarter final and the

01:48 next target is to get to the semi final.

01:50 And as you say, regardless of how you played, you've got to win, back to league next week,

01:56 it's nice to be winning when you're not playing pot at your best.

01:58 Absolutely, it's so crucial to win these matches and especially when you haven't played well

02:03 and I don't want to sound like a gloom merchant but I've told the fellas that it can't always

02:07 be a pat on the back after every victory, we're at a level now and we're striving to

02:10 achieve standards that we've got to be honest with each other and they know they didn't

02:14 turn up at times today but they showed a hell of a lot of guts when it really mattered at

02:17 the end.

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