O'Brien delighted with City Cup triumph

SION Swifts capped a fantastic season with a cup final win against Premiership side Greysteel in the North West City Cup on Friday.

Paul Carlin scored a fantastic goal, sprinting clear of the two centre halves and smashing it into the net, to secure the cup.

Their cup final triumph capped a season where they also won the league and secured promotion to the Premiership and manager Dermot O'Brien said that is where Sion Swifts belong. "I am not being big headed or anything, but that is where we should be, up there along with the so-called big boys."

Their double success came with the same core group of players who won three leagues in the last five years.

O'Brien said: "It was a great way to finish up. We have only been beaten twice all season. We are showing the rewards of our hard work.

"They are a great bunch of lads, all hard working honest lads. They have great technical qualities and are a great skillful group. Really they should get the credit for what they have done. Nothing to do with me, the credit has to go to the players."

He says that although they managed to win a league and cup double, knocking Premiership teams out of the cup along the way, it has not all been plain sailing: "It was great, we played some absolutely great football. We played some teams off the park.

"It means more because we lost of couple of boys to Finn Harps and we lost a couple of boys to injury. A young fellow, Conor Carlin, James Gallagher both went to Harps, we lost Christopher Gallagher in the last 16 of the Irish Junior Cup. He hurt his knee badly and that was a big loss because he used to score goals for fun.

"We lost those couple of players but we had a couple of boys coming back from injury."

Asked about his expectations for the coming season in the Premiership, O'Brien is far from daunted by the prospect of moving up in class: "We will be back into the big boys. I think that is where we should be. We have already beat some of them already. We beat Lincoln Courts in the quarter-final of the North West City Cup, we beat Burndennett in the semi-final and we beat Greysteel in the final.

"We were up there until two years ago, most of the boys played there. We are looking forward to it."

Dermot O'Brien has a message of thanks at the end of a successful campaign: "I would like to thank everybody who supported Sion Swifts throughout the season. I have to mention Danny Gallagher, Mr Sion Swifts, he has a great youth structure and that has given me some great players to pick from. I have to thank Johnny Kelly from the Fir Trees, for supplying sponsorship and sandwiches after the matches."