Derry hurling manager Johnny McGarvey reacts to a hard fought opening day Christy Ring Cup win over Donegal in Celtic Park
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00:00Johnny, you were saying in the build up to the match, you were expecting a very very different match from O'Donnell Park and by God you got it.
00:06Aye, I think it was very much as we expected and I suppose the Breeze played a wee bit apart in the first half especially.
00:13You know, it was a dogged, it was a dogged game, it was a dogged performance and look, it's a championship now, you're not going to get it handed to you, you're going to have to dig in to get your results and look, we're delighted to get the one.
00:26I mean at half time, is it done well in the first half against Edwin to stay as close as you had, what was the message coming out for the second half?
00:33It was very much don't panic, just take your time, chip away at the scoreboard and sooner or later we'll get that wee patch where we'll get 3 or 4 in the bounce and it did come and it took fresh legs off the bench to get it over the line but I thought we had some great performances.
00:48You know, in the first half we really had to dig it out, they probably had a few aids they probably should have taken but look, we probably left 4 goals behind us there.
00:58You know, Mijal probably left 3 behind them on his own.
01:01I was going to say that, while it was a point, there was at least 4 goal chances and I think Mijal must have been thinking they'd run over a black cat or something.
01:07To be fair, they had a couple as well but I mean, probably one of them early in the second half probably would have killed the game earlier.
01:15You know, we got it out to 4 or 5, maybe 6 at a stage and we kept it at that 4 or 5, we kept it outside of a score difference.
01:22You know, we probably got fortunate with a goal chance there near the end as well.
01:25But look, I thought we hurled really well, I thought our intensity was very good but championships, especially in the Christie Ring campaign, it's about building.
01:33You know, you're not going to blow every team out of the water and not by any stretch of the imagination do we think we were.
01:38I think London have beat me today, Wicklow have beat Tyrone, so we knew what this was going to be today.
01:43This was going to be a banana skin that we didn't want to get caught in.
01:46It's sort of a championship game where you needed a big performance from boys and Christie McNaughton stepped up and it was 1-9 in the end.
01:52He was brilliant.
01:53You know, but it's not his scoring.
01:55You know, it's not his scoring that makes him the player that he is.
01:57It's everything else.
01:58I mean, his leadership on the team now is first class.
02:01But it's them wee 50-50s that he won, you know, the dirty ball where, you know, he's getting his hull-tailed,
02:06it's straight into the hand, he picks a good pass, he doesn't make a lot of mistakes.
02:09No, really, really good.
02:10I'm sure John Moan got 5 or 6 from play as well, really good up front.
02:14You know, but I mean, defensively, it was heroic stuff there at the finish.
02:18Turner, Mark Craig, PK, Sean Kelly even, you know, just sound is always half.
02:23Everybody, you couldn't, you know, as dogged as it was,
02:26it wasn't the free-flowing Hurling that we had three weeks ago,
02:29but the performances were equally as impressive.
02:32And now, you touched on it there earlier, you've got travelling to London now,
02:36and that's a London team that's put up a big score against, in Meath.
02:39Look, you put five goals in Meath, you're a good team.
02:43Look, having touched on it through the week, hadn't really looked much at them.
02:47You know, we know what their results have been, know their run today.
02:50A couple of players today, I'm not sure of them.
02:53You know, but look, we'd start looking at them this evening or tomorrow.
02:56And we go there well-prepared, like, that's a hard place to go and try and get a result.
03:00You know, and obviously, beating Meath today, they're a really good side.
03:03So, look, it's a bit navigating through this thing and try and get to the final that way.
03:07Good start, though. I mean, you won it.
03:09You talked about how important in this league it is just to get two points to get you up and running.
03:12You've got that now. Take it and move on.
03:14100%, you know. This one's now put them ahead for the season.
03:17We move on. It's all a bit long now.
03:19It's all a bit long now.