Daniel Martin Melly savours Na Rossa re-emergence following Junior A triumph

It was only fitting that when a Na Rossa captain climbed the steps for the club’s first trophy in a quarter of a century, Daniel Martin Melly was the man.

Nineteen summers have come and gone since the 34-year-old first donned the famous black and white jersey for the club’s seniors.

After experiencing a JFC final defeat in 2006 and an IFC championship loss in 2008, it is little wonder that the Na Rossa skipper was getting the jitters towards the end of Saturday’s Junior A final in O’Donnell Park.

Moville had come back from four points down early on to lead by three at half-time. And the Inishowen men, the underdogs, still led by two as the clock ticked into injury time. 

But three injury-time points courtesy Odhran Molloy, Cillian Bonner and John Paul McCready saw Na Rossa snatch the dramatic win.      

“Relief was my first emotion at the final whistle,” said Melly after.  “I did not think with five minutes to go, in stoppage time, we would win. 

“Obviously you never give up. It didn’t look good for us for a while. We were not playing well and we did ourselves no favours at times.

“But all year, any time a game went down to the wire, we always managed to pull it out of the bag and it was the exact same today.”

Na Rossa took an unbeaten run into the final with an opening day draw with Naomh Conaill the only real negative on an otherwise exemplary report card for 2023. 

As a result, they went into the weekend’s showdown with surprise finalists Moville as firm favourites.   

“The favourites tag did not bother us,” Melly explained. “Declan had us well grounded. Moville are a good team and we knew what they were capable of”. 

The full-back insisted Saturday’s final win was not one just to be enjoyed by the players but it was also there to savour for the club’s officials and the large support that made their way through the O’Donnell Park turnstiles on Saturday. 

“The result means so much to everyone from Doochary to Dooey. There is so much support for the club. The area is small and there are not a lot of people.  

“So we scramble for players. We have no reserve team and we are very low on numbers. But this is what it is all about.

“It took previous managers in the last few years to get things restarted and Declan came in this year and moved it all on again.

“He is very instrumental in the club. He is the chairman as well and brings a lot of football know-how to the table, given his experience and that's what got us over the line here today.”

When asked about flying the Donegal flag in the Ulster Junior Championship the man who picked up the Dr McCloskey Cup, said: “We hadn’t even thought about Ulster before today. We will look at that next week but we have some celebrating to do first.”