'We just didn't do ourselves justice'

Glenullin manager Michael O'Kane admits the Derry and Ulster champions have no-one to blame but themselves following Sunday's disappointing defeat in the All Ireland Intermediate Club Football final at Croke Park.

The John Mitchel's went into the game in confident mood but were undone by a below par performance at GAA headquarters.

Afterwards, he spoke openly to the media about his thoughts.

"I'm just heartbroken," he said.

"I'm so annoyed with ourselves that we just didn't do ourselves justice. It's something we've talked about all year, about doing ourselves justice and having no regrets, unfortunately, we have so many regrets stepping out of here today.

"It's our own fault. There's nobody else to blame. We're not looking for excuses. We were beat by a better team. The fact that we didn't play as well is probably down to them in a large part, but we didn't perform to anywhere near our ability.

"Ryan McNicholl had flu all week. Ryan got out of his bed this morning to play that match. He hasn't been out of bed since Wednesday.

"Terrible timing for the lad himself, he's worked his way back from a cruciate injury and then to get a flu. We kept thinking he was getting better, but he's done nothing all week. The game last week to get out of bed and then eventually getting a flu on Wednesday just knocked him for six and you could see that in him.

"He's been the best player to me in the Intermediate Championship this year that I've seen, but he just wasn't at himself today. It's disappointing for the lad himself. I'm really heartbroken for him because he was made to play in Croke Park, but he just didn't get to show himself today, but he'll be back, whether with us or with Derry, he'll definitely be back.

Were nerves a factor?

"I didn't think it was. I thought we prepared brilliantly for the occasion. It's early now, but I wouldn't have changed anything we'd done in the lead-up to the game, how we prepared this morning.

"It's easy to say after, we should have done this or should have done that, but I was very happy with our preparation. Going out on the pitch, I felt we were in good shape. We just were so poor on the ball. I think we won both kick-outs; those four pillars of the game that we talk about: our own kick-out, their kick-out, we won both of those. We had more shots than them, we had more goal chances than them. They were the better team and that's something we left to live with.

"I can't explain it, it was a really strange game. Whenever you throw all those stats out, but stats don't win games, unfortunately. Good footballers do and their good footballers showed up today.

It didn't happen for you in the first half, what did you say at half-time?

"Again, it goes back to one of our mantras all year was 'no regrets.' We've lived by that all year. It sounds silly now, coming out and having to put in one of the worst performances our club's ever done. We're full of regret. We just didn't do self-justice. We had so many players play within themselves.

"We did a couple of good performances, but most people were below par there. That's just why we lost the game. We weren't good enough in possession and our players didn't play to their ability.

Seemed very deep first half?

"I'll be honest. We felt coming down if we'd kept An Ghaeltacht to 15 points we had won the game. An Ghaetacht scored 12 points.

"I understand people will say we were deep defensively and I'm sure most of our supporters are roaring, 'you need to step out'. I'm sure most of the people would have thought if we'd kept An Ghaeltacht to 12 points that we'd have won the game.

"It was our attacking side that didn't function. I know it's easy saying it and they held possession for long parts of the game. Would we change how we done things? We probably would have to if we watched the game back, but our attack didn't function.

"We're averaging 3-15 or something all year in every game, but they're a really, really good opposition. They're a really high standard, but it's our problem. They didn't let us into it.

Ryan sick, Donal (O'Kane) out, how big were those losses?

"Donal tore his hamstring badly. It's the worst hamstring he could have got but he was out there trying to give us something. I just I didn't feel comfortable playing him.

"It was really bad. It was a 16 week injury he got and he's back out today trying to help us after three weeks. Fair play to that lad, but when you take two of our full-forward line out, which has been our best line all year, it left us very toothless I thought in attack.

Out of possession, could you have done more to press them - 76% possession chokes you?

"I just said that stats don't win games. Possession doesn't win you a lot of games of football. We've lived off scraps in other games and we've come through. We had more shots than them, so could you say they should have had more shots than us? We had more shots than them. They had more possession, but we had more shots. We had more goal chances.

"I know I might sound a wee bit pissed off about that, but possession doesn't win you games. Shooting does and our shooting didn't function today. I've been told the stats, I haven't seen them there, but that's why we lost the game, you know.

You won Derry, won Ulster - when the dust settles will you be able to take solace from that?

"Disappointment. There's no other word for it. Eaten bread is long forgotten. Three weeks, four weeks, five weeks since we won Ulster, it doesn't bother me anymore that we won Ulster. I've no feelings about it either way. It's done us in the past. Our players felt like that too.

"Overriding emotion is disappointment. We don't care what happened last year. That was our mantra going into the game. Last year's been and gone and obviously we just didn't play well enough.

Same set-up as all year?

"No, look, defensively we've been very good all year. I think that's the least we've been seen it in a long time. As sound as if I'm repeating myself, but we didn't score enough.

"You're talking to me about defensively being deep: they never get in to score a goal at all. They scored a couple of brilliant two-pointers but we planned for them scoring a couple. We just felt we were going to hit 1-15, 1-16. That's the story of the game. It's easy to say we were too deep. That's not the case.

"Defensively we've done our job. There's two parts to the game. What you do when you're in possession of the ball, what you do when you're not in possession of the ball. What we've done when we were out of possession was perfect. We held them to 12 points which would win most games of football in Croke Park.

"What we've done when we were in possession of the ball was poor, there's no getting away from that. I don't know why people can't see that there's two different sides to the game. Everybody can't play the same way. Everybody can't do the same thing.

"When we're not in possession of the ball, we have to stop them scoring. We kept them to 12 points. We just didn't do our job when we were attacking. That's the name of the game. That's the long and short of it."