Derry hurling manager Johnny McGarvey gives his reaction to crucial win against London

Derry hurling manager Johnny McGarvey gives his reaction to crucial Christy Ring Cup win against London in Owenbeg

Transcript

00:00 Johnny you were probably looking for a reaction after last week and you definitely got it

00:05 there. I definitely got it there. We expected what that was going to be, we expected it

00:10 to be really tough. Was it a 9? I think probably, didn't expect it to be a 9 point, we really

00:17 thought that would go right to the wire. But look the second goal made a wild difference

00:21 to it, just all of a sudden with a wee bit of breathing space. Fair enough with a few

00:25 waves, they had a lot of waves in the first half, maybe 12 anyway. But look it was exactly

00:30 what we thought it was going to be and absolutely delighted to come out of that one. You know

00:34 what was on the line, I think you could see both teams knew what was on the line coming

00:37 and did. And the first half I think they racked up a rate of 11 waves, there was nothing between

00:42 them. Now to be fair I think a lot of our pressure on their shooting was very very good,

00:47 you know, high intensity, like there was some massive head spin at one rate at the start

00:51 there on Tad, and that went on right to the end. But we expected that, like this is Championship

00:55 Holland, we were in last chance to loon there, as we will be again next week, whereas they've

01:00 still the north crack at it. So no, look, absolutely over the moon, delighted with the

01:05 one. How important was it just to get that late point at the end of the first half to

01:09 go in ahead? Aye, well I mean, it wasn't really discussed much at half time, you know the

01:15 fact that we were a point up at half time, it was just keep doing the basics well, keep

01:19 creating space for ourselves and try and take the right shooting options. I mean, probably

01:23 the second goal was probably the perfect example of that, like John and Corey both had chances

01:28 to tap that ball over the bar, and we felt down in Kildare, we had chances to pass them

01:32 balls as well to create, they're probably 70/30s, turn them into 95/5s for the goals,

01:39 and look, goals are important, we didn't score them the last day, we did today. You brought

01:44 Christie in as an attacking focal point, I thought he'd done excellent there, won a lot

01:48 of dirty ball. Very, very good, you know, I thought there was a lot of wrestling in

01:51 the first half, you know, referees maybe seeing it, it's two big men fighting for it, I don't

01:55 know, he ended up maybe holding two points or something there, it's very, very good,

01:58 you know, the ball sticks away and he makes good decisions most of the time, you know,

02:02 but like all over the pitch I thought we were super, like Mark Craig, heard of hamstrings

02:07 before half time, he said he could play on and he did, sat in there as a sweeper in the

02:11 second half, cleaned up ball all day, thought Richie was amazing, you know, I just thought

02:14 all over the pitch I thought we were so good. One game to go now, one game away from the

02:18 final and it's just one more push for it. Aye, well look, I mean, probably the way it's

02:23 shaping now, you know, you have to be careful that, you know, you don't get caught, you

02:27 know, they'll play Kildare in the last match, so I mean, what happens there dictates how

02:32 this thing goes as well. Our job now is to go and beat Sligo. Not sure how their result

02:37 went today but look, we have to win, you know, and to make sure score difference isn't a

02:41 factor, if we get into a position to win we have to try and push on. But look, we're in

02:46 a good place, we thought we'd have to win four out of five at least to get through to

02:51 the final, we've got three ones with Sligo away next Saturday and looking forward to

02:56 it all.

02:56 (laughing)