By Michael McMullan

RYAN McEldowney spent 14 months out injured, but has more than made up for lost time and aims to help St Mary’s, Magherafelt win a second MacRory Cup.

In the last year, he won an All-Ireland Minor title with Derry and a Junior Championship with his club Desertmartin.

“It’s unreal,” McEldowney said of the build-up to the final. “It’s the sort of thing you dream of since first year.”

As a second year pupil, he remembers the hype, the singing in the stands and running on the pitch to join the euphoric celebrations after ‘The Convent’ won a first title in 2017.

“I just remember how great I felt for me; never mind the players and I was wondering how they felt,” added McEldowney, who has scored 1-11 from play in the way to Sunday’s showdown.

That year, McEldowney was on the wrong end of a 26-point drubbing at the hands of St Patrick’s, Maghera in the D’Alton Cup. They cut that deficit to three points 12 months later.

McEldowney places the turning point for their team as a win over Omagh, eventual winners the following year, in a Brock Cup group game.

“We knew they were a great team and that sparked it (Magherafelt’s progress), we started to believe in each other,” McEldowney said.

A defeat to St Ronan’s, Lurgan left Magherafelt with a winner takes all game with St Patrick’s, Cavan to qualify, which the Breffni side won on their way to the final.

“We were level with Cavan for stages in that game and we knew that we were able to take those teams to the wire that we were worth something,” he added.

“We came back the next year in the Rannafast with that same belief and then got heartbroken in the final.”

After enjoying much of the play, they went down by a single point, losing out to a free in stoppage time.

With his club, McEldowney’s progress began to follow a similar trend. Desertmartin’s commitment to coaching made the most of increasing numbers and it helped more players develop into the Ulster Schools and underage inter-county scene.

McEldowney’s Derry minor team mate Lachlan Murray has scored in all five his games under Rory Gallagher. Connor Shiels – who lost this year’s MacRory Cup semi-final with Maghera – is another on Derry’s minor winning team. Another Desertmartin man, Simon Matterson, will play at corner-back in Sunday’s final.

“We have got to play in a lot of ‘A’ finals lately having grew up playing B football,” McEldowney stated.

But he had a tough year and two months with injury after the 2020 MacRory campaign. It began with a wrist injury, followed by a troublesome hip-flexor and then a knee injury.

It kept him out of Martin Boyle’s plans for Derry minors’ opener with Armagh. The Tyrone game was too soon, leaving him with a tough task of breaking into a settled team on its way to an All-Ireland title.

“The fact I was coming on was unreal,” said McEldowney who feels the experience has helped his MacRory campaign.

It’s the belief he takes. When he came on against Kerry in the All-Ireland final, the Kingdom had just found the net and looked like winning the game until Derry hit back with the move that led to Matthew Downey’s winning penalty.

“It’s the same with this team and belief in each other,” McEldowney said. “We let in an early goal against Omagh (in the semi-final) and other teams might have thought, here we go, this is going to be a hammering match. We just calmed down and carried on to get each other through it.”

And once they got in at the interval it was a case of keeping the heads down and playing to the level that saw them win the previous four games by an average of 12 points. Sunday brings the final hurdle.