As a coach I'm so proud of them says Naomh Conaill's Shay Murrin

"The boys are county champions, they didn't let anyone down tonight and it was a devastating blow to lose it but as a coach, I'm  so proud of them, to be honest," said Shay Murrin, speaking as the Naomh Conaill team trundled to the team bus after losing to a last gasp point to the reigning Ulster champions, Glen Watty Grahams.

Naomh Conaill overcame a very poor opening quarter to edge ahead in the third quarter and it looked as if they had secured extra-time when AJ Gallagher got his fist to the ball and put it over the bar as the clock struck 63 minutes.

Three minutes of added time had been notified but Gallagher lay injured in the Glen square after the point and referee Sean Hurson allowed one more play when he recovered.

And when the ball reached midfielder Emmet Bradley around the 45m line, he swung over his third point of the half and it proved to be the last kick of the game and left the Naomh Conaill side devastated.

"I suppose we were pressing hard on that last kick-out and we won it and then lost it. We weren't really thinking about extra-time. We were thinking if we win it,  we can get a score here. But we lost it and they got the score and we didn't have time to react to it," said Murrin.

The Naomh Conaill coach agreed that they were well below their best in the opening quarter. "In possession for 15 or 17 minutes we were particularly poor. We were giving the ball away handy, and we found our groove in the last seven or eight minutes of the half. Before that Glen were well in control and we were in trouble.

"At one stage they had an easy enough free to go four-nil up and it looked dangerous at that point. But we always thought we would find a way, we have done that all year. We got scores in spats.

"At half-time we came in and we said we're not that far away and we could do this. We talked about our attacking play and the way we can change. And it worked a few times. But in fairness to the players Glen put a huge press on us all over the park. They asked major questions of us, different to what teams in Donegal tend to do to us.

"Them boys are mentality monsters, all the time. You could do nothing but be proud of them. They always respond; they always react; they always turn up. Even when we were four-nil down I felt we are going to get a period here sometime.

"The second half was immaculate at times. Glen did something different to us in regard to pressing us in different areas of the park that we weren't used to. They pressed players that aren't used to being pressed and they lost the ball. And I wouldn't fault our lads for that. They were out against a really good side.

"When the pressure was on in the last three or four minutes I felt our boys were immaculate in terms of trying to work a score and being very composed," said Murrin.

Naomh Conaill hearts broken late on as Watty Grahams progress to another decider

Trailing by a point as matters neared the end of the allocated three minutes of injury time, AJ Gallagher popped up to flick over the bar and level the game up. However, Malachy O’Rourke’s men would go straight down the other side and through Bradley, seal their passage with the very last kick of the game

Naomh Conaill certainly asked questions of the Ulster champions as well, especially when they played high ball into their goal area.

"There's an argument that we should have done it more. I know people say it's a 50-50 kick but we get scores off it. It tends to work for us."

But at the end of the day, the result did not go in their favour and Murrin reflected on the way things turned out. "We're devastated, there's no other way to describe it. We were close but tonight we're a million miles away. They're in the final and we're not. And they deserved it. They pressed buttons on us that were not pressed before.

"But the one thing about these boys, they will come back. Whatever it is, they'll come back and they'll learn from this," said Murrin.

The winning score from Emmet Bradley was a thing of beauty but Murrin says there is little you can do to prevent something like that.

"There's nothing you can do with that. He kicks from outside the scoring zone and he's a class footballer.

"That's what happens when you get to this level, teams have a range of scorers that you are not used to within your own county, county level scorers, you  could describe them."