Four Masters’ spirit and character lauded by managers Gallagher and Loughney

Four Masters’ joint management team of Emmett Gallagher and Caolan Loughney were immensely proud of the character and spirit shown by their side following Sunday’s U-16 Division One championship final win. 

Four Masters defeated Sean MacCumhaills in an intriguing and highly competitive final played at the Donegal Centre of Excellence in Convoy where the men from Donegal Town won on a scoreline of 1-9 to 1-7 after coming from four points down at one stage in the second half.   

“I honestly thought when they scored the goal and went four up, I began to think it wasn’t going to be our day,” admitted Loughney at the final whistle.  

“But in fairness to our lads, they showed great character. They never panicked, they just dug in and got the result. I’m really delighted for them, especially after losing last year’s final to St Eunans.”  

Just a point separated the teams at half-time with Four Masters leading 0-2 to 0-1.  

Both managers were naturally disappointed with just two points from 30 minutes of play having a wind advantage in the opening half.  

But the joint management were in unison in saying they were very happy with an awful lot of their side's general play in the first half.  

“We were very happy with an awful lot of our play in the first half; it was just that getting scores was the problem,” said Loughney.  

“We were disappointed going in at half-time having only scored two points playing with the wind.” 

But Emmet Gallagher admitted that despite only landing 0-2 in the first half they were satisfied to allow the boys to continue the way they were playing.  

“We told the boys at half-time to continue to play they were playing and the scores would come,” said Gallagher. 

“We worked a lot this year on our kicking game and transition play all year. And we had done that fantastically well on that aspect in the first half.  

“The problem was we lacked that wee bit of composure in the final third of the field to get the scores on the board, but then on the other side of it we defended tremendously well. 

“So, we felt if we could get that composure in front of the posts, that we didn’t have in the first half, then the scores would come. It took us to go behind before we found that composure.”  

Gallagher also felt the Masters' tough semi-final, also in Convoy, stood to his young side.  

“We had a tough semi-final against Naomh Conaill where the boys had to really dig deep in the second half to get the win,” he said. 

“When we went behind after they MacCumhaills’ goal, I think that hunger and desire we produced against Naomh Conaill came out in them again. 

“I think we finished out the game really well.”