Ryan Jones of Derrygonnelly.
There is an opportunity for Derrygonnelly to make a bit of history this Saturday.
With the New York trophy safely stowed in Canon Maguire Park, Archie Greene’s men are looking to chalk up the club’s first ever double by claiming the league title.
Harps captain Ryan Jones insists there remains a huge hunger for success in the club and they won’t be sparing any effort as they take on St Joseph’s under the Brewster lights.
“There’s a trophy there to play for and obviously we’re going to be all guns blazing trying to put in a good performance and hopefully we’ll come back with a league medal to add to the championship medal.
“Derrygonnelly have never done the double in their history, so that would be a great achievement for the club. It’s a Saturday night match which is always pretty unique. The facilities at Brewster are top notch too, so hopefully if it stays anyway decent over the weekend it should make for a great occasion.”
As captain, it would fall to Jones to lift the a second major trophy in a couple of months for the purple and gold, but the dynamic midfielder isn’t one to concern himself about the post match photo ops.
“It’s an added bonus [the captaincy], but there’s leaders throughout our team and at the end of the day it’s about the team winning it. It doesn’t really matter who goes up there and lifts the trophy, it’s a team effort.
“That’s been the key thing to date. Boys have stepped up to the plate when other fellas may have been injured or away. You can’t overstate how much of a team performance it has been to get us to this point.”
The league finalists met in the last round of league games a few weeks back, but, as Jones outlines, that clash is almost useless as a potential form guide for this decider.
“That game was played in terrible conditions after a late change in venue. I think Ederney tried a few different things that day and they were missing a couple of players against us too,” said the Derrygonnelly star.
“They put in a much stronger performance against Roslea on Sunday and I’ve no doubt that they will be a serious test on Saturday night. It’ll be like a championship match because any time we play Ederney it’s hard and it’s physical.”
Ankle injury meant Jones had to sit out that last meeting with Mark Henry’s men, but he remains hopeful he’ll be able have a say on the field this Saturday.
“I’ve been working away on my ankle myself and hopefully it should be good to go on Saturday. But if not I’m sure there’ll be other boys there to step up and give it their all. I’ve missed the last couple of league games and the lads have really kicked on. I’ll know closer to the match, but at the minute I’d be hopeful of playing some part.
“We got through to the final after the Belleek game so any lads that had a couple of knocks we weren’t going to risk them in the last match. I think the manager should have a full hand to pick from and a selection headache because there’s a lot of boys who have come in and put in good performances. It’ll be a tough ask for Archie [Greene] to pick a starting 15.”
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