Derry Under 20 manager Hugh McGrath gives his verdict on his side's late defeat against Tyrone

Derry Under 20 manager Hugh McGrath gives his verdict on his side's late Group A defeat against Tyrone in the Ulster U20 Championship

Transcript

00:00 Just when it looked like you got yourself back into it and it nicked a point from the game.

00:05 Heartbreaking way to lose it?

00:06 I don't know about heartbreaking but look it's never nice to lose.

00:10 It was that sort of game though wasn't it? It was up and down, each team having a proper go at it.

00:16 There was always that chance we tried to press the kick and tried a few things out.

00:20 We got caught at the end. It's simple, that's how it happens in football sometimes.

00:24 But there's enough positives to take out of the game to take into Monaghan next week.

00:28 They've won their early game tonight so that'll be a do or die battle next week.

00:32 We hope that we've learned some things from tonight and we carry that into that game.

00:37 It's not a disaster in a sense in the group. It probably leaves Tyrone better placed to top it

00:41 but you'll not be getting too worried about them being defeated at this point?

00:44 No, but it's never nice to lose, especially a derby game.

00:48 Never nice to lose against Tyrone but look it's happened, we know where we are.

00:54 If we finish first, second, third in the group we go through but we have to get that job done.

00:59 So that's why next week in Castledooney is such a big thing.

01:02 Look we've got a game into Danny McDermott tonight, we've got Niall O'Donnell back into the fray

01:07 and got some minutes into his legs so it's moving in the right direction.

01:10 A win would have been superb, it would have been enjoyable, it would have been all the rest of those things

01:14 but nothing really changes in terms of what we need to do to get to the next level of it.

01:18 It's just a case of, you said there's positives to take, you've listed a few of them.

01:23 While the results are in the bag, were you happy enough with some of what you've seen?

01:26 Yeah, look, some of the work on our own kick-out was good, some of our transition was very good.

01:31 You have to remember a lot of these guys are first year at this age, so far they are in what's a learning curve.

01:36 That's their second game at this level.

01:38 You've Johnny McGuckin and Kehar Spears that are getting in there and doing those things,

01:42 Rory Small, Finn McEldooney, it's a learning curve for all of them

01:45 and every game like that against the opposition that we've played tonight will bring them on

01:50 and that's what we want to see from them.