After losing out to Magheracloone in the 2019 Ulster final, last month’s victory over Corduff was extra special for Liam Rafferty and his Galbally teammates.
Having secured provincial honours, their attention switches to the All-Ireland series and Saturday’s meeting with Galway and Connacht champions Dunmore at St Loman’s in Mullingar.
Tyrone clubs have a formidable record in the Ulster Club series at the Intermediate grade, but only Cookstown (2010 and 2013) and Moy (2018) have gone on to win All-Ireland titles.
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Rafferty, an All-Ireland winner with Tyrone in 2021, hailed last month’s 1-9 to 0-5 win over the Monaghan champions at the Athletic Grounds the best moment of his career, but hopes there’s more to come from Galbally.
“It is the stuff of dreams, playing in an All-Ireland semi-final with your club. Even winning an Ulster title - it is the best moment of my career,” said Rafferty.
“It is great to get an Ulster title, but now it is all about the next game.
“Hopefully, we can continue to prepare well as we have done all year. The Galway champions will always be tough, but it is a challenge we’re looking forward to.
“We showed in the Tyrone Championship and throughout the Ulster campaign that we’ve quality all over the pitch and, hopefully, we can continue to improve.”
Rafferty believes some epic battles in the Tyrone Championship helped prepare the Pearse’s for their Ulster campaign.
Paddy Crozier’s men defeated Pomeroy in their Championship opener and were brought to extra-time by neighbours Killeeshil in the semi-final.
They then got the better of Edendork 2-11 to 3-7 in the county final and Rafferty believes those game have stood to them.
“Edendork, Killeshill, Pomeroy are all great clubs,” said Rafferty.
“It is always a very competitive Championship in Tyrone and it is always difficult to get out of that Championship.
“We wouldn't have been favourites for the Championship at all - we certainly weren’t favourites against Pomeroy or Edendork.
“We prepared very well for those games, we’ve trained hard all year and we were lucky to come out on the right side of them.”
Rafferty paid tribute to the management team of Crozier and former Tyrone star Joe McMahon for the way they handled the build-up to the delayed Ulster final win over Corduff.
Attempts to play the game earlier in December failed due to an unplayable pitch at Páirc Esler.
“There’s plenty of men in the background who have been working hard over the number of weeks as well,” added Rafferty.
“The knowledge and experience that Paddy Crozier and Joe McMahon bring was unbelievable.
“We knew everything there was to know about Corduff, how we expected them to play etc and that’s what we trained for.
“The delay was difficult to manage. For the first game, we were really revved up for the game. When it was called off, it felt like a bit of a let-down. Then it happened a second time.
“At least we knew the game was definitely going to go ahead the third time.
“The management kept us ticking over. We revisited what we’d talked about two weeks previous and we were able to execute it.”
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