IT’S been a tough couple of days for the Bredagh club. Their hurlers’ preparations for a tilt at the Ulster intermediate title were tinged with sadness due to the death of Fergal McFlynn, the father of defender Oran McFlynn.
A minute’s silence was held ahead of their provincial quarter-final with Burt in Páirc Esler on Sunday afternoon, before McFlynn played the full 60-plus minutes as the Down champions made their way to the last four.
McFlynn, a native of Swatragh, who Bredagh will now face in the final four, had a solid game at right corner-back and his personal loss has put everything into perspective according to manager Donal Sheehan.
“All the boys were up at the wake on Wednesday night. Oran’s a proud Swatragh man too and that’s who we play in the next round so there will be a lot of emotions in that game and it was very emotional day for Oran,” explained Sheehan.
“On behalf of the club we really want to thank Oran for playing because he’s absolutely essential to our team. The man never misses training, he never misses a match, senior or reserves, he’ll play anything.
“He absolutely loves the game and he’s a great role model to the young ones too. It puts a lot of things into perspective as well and we said that during the week, at the end of the day it’s just a hurling match.
“Sometimes, maybe for 60 minutes, as Bill Shankly famously said in football, it’s life and death, but to us it put a lot of things into perspective, it really did, and family means a lot.
“The boys sort of used that and went out and played for their families and played for their coaches who took them at U8 and U10 and all the rest. To be in an Ulster semi-final for Bredagh is just unbelievable. We’re absolutely delighted.”
Bredagh looked comfortable heading into the final quarter, but a fortuitous goal helped bring the Donegal champions back into contention. The men in maroon finished strongly, however, to come out on top by two.
“The goal changed everything and that’s what happens, you get these purple patches in matches, and we knew it was going to come, we didn’t know it was going to come maybe in the last five or 10 minutes,” added Sheehan.
“It put us under severe pressure, but our keeper Ian Galway had a great game, he knew to go short there as well instead of going long, take the pressure off a little bit too and it really helped us.
“I think the boys maybe thought they had it won in the last 10 minutes, but Burt had different ideas, and they put up a mighty, mighty fight. It was a tough game, we knew this was going to be a tough, hard, physical game.
“It went right down to the wire and I’m sure Burt would be extremely disappointed today walking away from that but they put in a mighty performance.
“We got put it in the first-round last year against Creggan, went right down to the wire as well and we lost by a point. We learned from that experience and I’m sure Burt will learn from this experience too, but it was a classic game.
“We just couldn’t put them away; they kept coming back and they were very resilient. They showed a lot of grit, and more importantly we showed that resilience and grit just to fight back again and just it at the end.”
