Letterkenny Gaels captain Browne says title win brings ‘a brilliant feeling'

Conor Browne and Letterkenny Gaels wrote their own piece of Donegal GAA history with their Junior A championship final win over Carndonagh.

It was the Gaels first senior football championship win, which adds a new name to the roll of honour, with Browne the first captain of a Gaels side adult championship winning team.

“It is a brilliant feeling and words cannot really describe it,” he said. “It has been a long time coming and we had so many near misses in the last few years but thankfully we finally got over the line.

“It has made up for the disappointment of losing last year’s final. We started very slowly and I thought here we go again another bad day at the office.

"But we kicked a couple of points before half-time and we went at the break just three points down. And given we had played in the opening 20 minutes we were happy with that and it was a matter of getting the first score of the second half.

Gaels kept their nerve a year on from a substandard performance against Downings in the decider, to overcome Carndonagh on a 0-12 to 0-10 scoreline.

Letterkenny Gaels end their wait with JFC final win over Carndonagh

Letterkenny Gaels defeated Carndonagh in Sunday's Junior Football Championship final at O'Donnell Park

“We did that and we had a couple of good goal chances in the second half and did not take them. Thankfully they did not come back to haunt us. Brian Diver was very unlucky to hit the post for what was a clear goal chance. But we turned the ball over again inside the 45 and got a point from it.

“I think that point really settled us again and we did not let the missing goal chance get to us and we kicked on again. It was nerve wrecking in the closing minutes as Carndonagh put on the pressure  and they had a couple of wides and Shane Graham made a great save from Conor O’Donnell and turned it out from the 45.”