By Niall Gartland

TRILLICK boss Jody Gormley acknowledged that his players ‘died with their boots on’ after they were pipped at the post in Sunday’s drama-laden Ulster Senior Championship semi-final defeat to Scotstown.

The Tyrone Senior Champions fell agonisingly short on the day, losing out by a single point after extra-time at the BOX-IT Athletic Grounds, but it certainly wasn’t for a lack of trying against a Scotstown side with a wealth of experience at this level.

While it marked a disappointing climax to Trillick’s provincial campaign given how close they came to a place in the final, they were a credit to themselves and their community and they showed that they can mix it with the very best of them in Ulster.

Speaking after the game, manager Jody Gormley said, “You could say they died with their boots on, they fought hard for every ball in every position and today we just came up short. We had a good run up until now. Obviously defeat is disappointing but we’ll have a look at it and see where we can improve.”

Despite yesterday’s defeat to Scotstown, there’s still the appetising prospect of a league and championship double as they now turn their attention to next Sunday’s Division One semi-final against Killyclogher. Trillick are reigning league champions and they’ll get back down to business in the coming days.

“This is a very ambitious group of players and they want to keep improving, I still think looking at it, there is more improvement in us. There’s certain aspects of that game we could do better. We’ll dust ourselves down and get ready for our league semi-final.”

While wishing Scotstown well in their Ulster final date with defending champions Glen in a fortnight’s time, Gormley admitted that he was frustrated with some of the decisions of referee Kevin Falloon in extra-time.

A couple of late frees converted by Jack McCarron were of the soft variety, and there was a big enough moment of controversy when a Trillick free was rescinded when the ball was adjudged to have gone over the sideline in the build-up. It was sore on Trillick in such a closely contested game.

Gormley said, “It’s disappointing, when you’re at this stage of Ulster Championship it comes down to moments in the game and I thought a few moments didn’t go for us.

“They got a free kick on one of our 14 yard kick-outs and I thought that was a big call at that stage. There was a line ball, there were small margins. But not to take away from Scotstown, they’re a very good team and we wish them all the best in the final.”

Elaborating on the line-ball decision, Gormley continued:

“The ball wasn’t out. From where I was standing on the line the ball wasn’t out, but that’s sport, everyone makes mistakes, that’s part and parcel of it and you can get on with it. Some days you come out on the right side of those decisions and some days you don’t. Fair play to Scotstown, today they were marginally the better team and we wish them all the best in the final.”