Francie Martin relishes winning an All-Ireland Masters title as manager

For Francie Martin it was All-Ireland success again at Masters level, this time as a manager. The Glenfin man already has an All-Ireland Masters medal with Donegal.

He took on the reins of the Masters this year and recruited Eddie Crawford and John Joe O’Shea and he watched his charges run out winners against London in Breffni Park, Cavan in the Plate final.

Watching on from the sidelines he said he was a little worried as Donegal found it hard to settle even though they were playing with the aid of a strong breeze.

“I thought our first 10 minutes was the worst football we played all year. I was thinking to myself things were not going right. We played some silly stuff. I’d said to myself, ‘what’s happening here’?

“But you see when we settled down; the first fifteen minutes were very poor but in the second fifteen minutes of the first half we were very good,” said Martin.

“We really started to take the game to them and we got five points up at half-time. They never took it down past that in the second half.”

London were the better team in the opening quarter but they suffered a couple of setbacks.

“Michael Molloy with an injury was a big loss for them. I didn’t see what happened with the red card. In the second half we were the superior team. Thanks to the hard work we had done, we looked the fitter team. London ran themselves into the ground in the first half and probably could have been further in front against the wind early on

“They just seemed to run out of steam in the second half and the loss of key players like Molloy and then the red card. It was sapping for them because they had no energy left then,” said  Martin.

But the Donegal boss was really happy with the way his players performed once they got going and he felt his side had the better players.

“There are some great players there, the likes of Eamon Ward, Nigel McMonagle. Nigel’s a real flyer and you have quality players there too when you look at Brian McLaughlin,  Stephen Coyle, Shaun Maguire, they are all good quality players.

“Even the players you are bringing in like Paddy Hannigan,  Hugh Foy and Paul McCrudden and all them boys.

“It was hard work all year keeping them together and going to training but it pays off and that’s what hard work does.”

Getting to an All-Ireland final and taking home the honours makes all the hard work worthwhile.

“It’s great, it’s great. And you can see families here and the excitement of coming up to Breffni Park and winning an All-Ireland. To win something at the end of the year is what it is all about,” said  Martin.