Derry U20 manager Hugh McGrath gives his verdict on the Ulster Championship victory over Cavan which sets up a semi-final against Donegal next Wednesday.
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00:00 You work away.
00:01 Hugh, good win in the end, possibly not perfect but Israel is a better team.
00:07 I'd just call it a win, not a good one.
00:09 Look, we're through to the next round and that was the aim at the start of the night.
00:13 Have we a lot to take from it to learn?
00:15 Yes, there's lots of things that were very untidy that we wouldn't be happy with
00:19 and given the calibre of football we have, we think we can do better.
00:23 But look, quarter-finals are there to be won, we've won it.
00:26 We wait to see who wins the next game, what way Israel will pan out.
00:29 We have a very short window to get ready, so whatever issues we've had tonight,
00:33 whatever we need to fix, we need to get to work quickly and get those areas fixed.
00:37 It was a slow enough start, a couple of points for Kevin to begin with,
00:40 but once Hughes hit the five on a row, you seemed to take control from there.
00:43 Look, we had an attack right from the throw in and we did a lot in the game.
00:48 We took it into traffic, we took it into areas we didn't want to take it into
00:51 and didn't move the ball through the hands quickly enough.
00:53 That was a bit of a theme for us at different junctures in the game.
00:56 The period you're talking about where he scored five on the track,
00:59 that's when we moved the ball well, we did the things we're good at.
01:02 So yes, lots of bad things and lots of things that were unhappy with it,
01:06 but the good things got us over the line.
01:08 Things like the goal, the movement was excellent for it, the quickness of the hands,
01:12 that's exactly what we want to see and what we know we're capable of.
01:15 We just need to see it more often in the game.
01:17 I mean, first half, you had control.
01:19 What was the message there coming out of the second half?
01:21 Because as much control as you had, they were still very much in the game at that point.
01:25 They were, and look, Kevin, some very good forwards in there.
01:29 James Murray did a really good job on Lovett tonight,
01:32 but he's still a threat and still an issue.
01:35 You've got to cover that threat at all times.
01:37 We did that really well.
01:38 For us, our issue was, I don't want to annoy Willy here,
01:42 but our transition just wasn't good enough.
01:44 It was good to a point, we got it to the halfway line,
01:46 and then we just didn't have enough depth.
01:49 We counteracted that slightly in the second half
01:52 and then tapered off again at the end where we didn't have enough depth.
01:56 But look, those are things we'll get the tape, we'll get the video,
01:58 we'll look at it, we'll see what we need to tweak.
02:01 Hopefully we'll tweak it enough that come the next day,
02:03 we get over the line again, win an Oster final.
02:05 Knockout teams are for winning at the end of the day, and you've done that.
02:08 You're probably going to be looking at an improvement maybe for the semi-final,
02:11 or you'll be after one?
02:12 Well, look, if we don't, we won't be in the Oster final, it's as simple as that.
02:15 The calibre of teams that are left in it are such that
02:18 if you don't improve on what we've seen during the night,
02:20 you won't be going any further and the journey for this group will be over.
02:23 We don't want that to happen.
02:25 The group is good, they've gelled really well, they've connected really well,
02:29 so we want the best for them, and the best for them is to go out,
02:32 perform at their best in the semi-final, and if they do,
02:34 that'll get them over the line.