Dublin defeat a chance to learn says Derry boss Mickey Harte

The five point loss was a first defeat as Derry boss for Harte whose team played second fiddle for long spells against the Leinster kingpins. Derry still created chances and had Shane McGuigan's audacious 55m chip found the net instead of a superb one hand David O'Hanlon save, it may have proved a momentum changer. Instead Dessie Farrell's side made the game safe with an excellent Cormac Costello goal, but Harte still believes there was plenty for his team to take from the game.

"I thought it was a good game," explained the Derry boss, "It was a good battle in the first half and that was playing against the elements which levelled off a bit in the second half. They're a top class side, you have to test yourself against the best, and you find out why they’re so good. You can’t afford be behind going down the home straight against a team like Dublin who can take care of the ball and draw you out, so that was a difficult place. We didn’t want to be in that place but we found ourselves in it.

"If Shane McGuigan’s goal had gone in, it might have changed the complexion of the game but Dublin were always difficult to break down and dangerous on the break. A good side, that’s why they’re All-Ireland champions and that’s why you learn from the best sides of the country so I hope we learned something tonight."

So what lessons could the Derry players could take from a first defeat of 2024?

"They’ll learn that the possession is precious and if you give it away, or you turn the opposition over, and don’t finish the job off, then you’re under serious pressure again," he explained, "We did that a number of times where we turned the ball over, won good possession back off them and made the break forward but we didn’t finish that move off; that meant you had to start to do it all over again.

"You learn things like that – how difficult it is to keep possession in close contact against players of that calibre and how they play as a unit; how they make life very difficult for you when you’re on the ball, so you learn that you don’t take it into the trap."

With four wins from their first four games, Harte made SEVEN changes from the side that defeated Monaghan and he said it was important to get a look at some younger players in such an intense game.

"You want to put players in against the best and see what that standard is like. Some of our newer and younger players will have seen that tonight and that’s good. The men we brought on at half time added a bit of power to our game but we still didn’t get the scores we needed – we created plenty of chances even in the first half – but maybe we weren’t that good at taking them, but that’s to do with the pressure that Dublin put on you as well. It’s not just to do with our waywardness," he added.