Aidan McHugh: It was great to see Daniel Martin Melly going up to pick up the cup

Aidan McHugh top-scored for Na Rossa with six points in Saturday’s 0-15 to 1-10 Donegal Junior A Championship final win over Moville.

Among those six efforts was the injury-time lead point that set Na Rossa on their way to victory and the Na Rossa centre half-forward deservingly picked up the ‘man of the match’ award afterwards.

But as he held the award close to his chest he insisted that while it was nice to get it, the most important prize was the Dr McCloskey Cup.  

“It was nice to get the award but the most important thing is that we won the match and lifted the Dr McCloskey Cup,” he said afterwards. "And it was just great to see Daniel Martin Melly going up to pick it up". 

Na Rossa may have gone into Saturday’s showdown as the hot favourites but Moville put it up to them and were leading going into injury time before McHugh restored his team’s lead. 

“Moville are a good side. They always put it up to us. We never take much notice of who is favourites.

“Convoy were big favourites against us and we went and turned them over. We just focussed on our own game. We went ahead early and they came back at us well. They have a few great players in Michael Barr and Ciaran Diver. 

“Once they went ahead it didn’t look like we were going to win. But we dug in as we have done in a lot of games all year when we were behind. 

“We just played to the end and always got something out of those games. 

“We always had the belief that we would go on and win it and thankfully we did.”

Aidan was only a young boy when Na Rossa played in their last final.

“It is a huge thing for the club to win the championship. The last final the club was in was in 2008, I was just eight at the time.

“Ever since that day, I have dreamed of getting back to another. Most of this team never played in a final and never really enjoyed any success with the club. 

“We have been building to this day for four or five years. Thankfully we got Declan (Bonner) in as manager this year. He is an unbelievable manager. Everyone bought in and it has been a great year for us. 

“We have won promotion to Division Two as well and only lost one game this year against St Naul’s, in the Division Three league final. So it has been a great year.”