Ulster title on Saturday night with a commanding 13-point win over Antrim champions St John\u2019s<\/a> at the Box-It Athletic Grounds.<\/p>\nIt is Slaughtneil\u2019s sixth provincial title since 2016, although they\u2019ve yet to reach the All-Ireland decider – something they\u2019ll be keen to address when they meet Loughrea.<\/p>\n
With Croke Park hosting the Leinster Senior Football and Hurling finals in a double-header next Saturday, McCormack feels it only fair that the other provincial winners are brought to HQ.<\/p>\n
The 2022 semi-finals were staged in Croke Park as a double-header with the-then Ulster champions Dunloy defeating St Thomas’ while eventual All-Ireland champions Ballyhale edged Ballygunner.<\/p>\n
\u201cCroke Park, why not? I think these men are fitting of it,\u201d said McCormack.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know the Leinster finalists are playing in Croke Park and that’s maybe an unfair advantage for that province.<\/p>\n
\u201cI’m just calling it out as it is. Why not? That’s out of our control. It’s something we can’t do much about.<\/p>\n
\u201cWherever the game is fixed we’ll be there but it would be brilliant to get playing in Croke Park. That’s the ultimate aim for this group.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is Slaughtneil\u2019s sixth semi-final and I know we’ll be doing all we can to win that semi-final.\u201d<\/p>\n
Slaughtneil have been involved in some brilliant clashes in Ulster at the Armagh venue in recent seasons, but Saturday\u2019s final never really caught fire with both defences on top in an extremely cagey first half.<\/p>\n
However, Slaughtneil had a better spread of scorers on the night with nine players contributing to their 23-point tally while St John\u2019s attacker Oisin MacManus scored all but one of his side\u2019s 10 points.<\/p>\n
The game was over a contest by the time Oisin Donnelly was sent off late on for a head-high challenge on Cathal \u00d3 Mian\u00e1in.<\/p>\n
While the likes of Shane McGuigan, Brendan Rogers and Chrissy McKaigue have stepped up in recent games, McCormack was keen to praise the efforts of his defenders for keeping Conor Johnston, Donal Carson and Shea Shannon all scoreless.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe got our match-ups right I felt, St John’s\u2019 threats from play, and we nullified them as best we could,\u201d added the Slaughtneil boss.<\/p>\n
\u201cOisin MacManus had a really good match and we just kept the scoreboard ticking I suppose and then at one point there was three in it, four in it and then all of a sudden we just keep flowing and we get into our groove, finding men who are running.<\/p>\n
\u201cCathal \u00d3 Miann\u00e1in\u2019s point was a tremendous point from the back to the front – from then I felt there was only going to be one winner.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought we had nullified Conor Johnston\u2019s threat and St John\u2019s then really had no other chief scorers.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur defence was tremendous, like Paul McNeill, Conor McAllister and then Fionn (McEldowney) of course. And maybe those boys were an unheralded part of the overall jigsaw on our team.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut those men are absolute competitors and the people that they have marked over the years. Fionn captained his county to an All-Ireland minor Championship on this pitch and there\u2019s no better man to set a challenge to<\/p>\n
\u201cHe showed again all his qualities of the way he plays and his aggressiveness within the rules of the game and just his desire to win ball. He’s a brilliant lad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Click here to sign up to our sport newsletter, bringing you the latest sports news, headlines and top stories<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paul McCormack says the Leinster finalists will have an “unfair” advantage in the All-Ireland series with Croke Park…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[92966,17769,4183,61,60,43],"class_list":{"0":"post-167457","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-co-derry","9":"tag-derry-gaa","10":"tag-gaa","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Slaughtneil](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1764500769_849_0_inpho_02835556.jpg\")
Slaughtneil manager Paul McCormack(Image: \u00a9INPHO\/Andrew Paton)<\/p>\n