Cormac O’Doherty says that his Derry team are looking to break the cycle and win a first Christy Ring Cup in their fifth final appearance.
Trips to Croke Park have become a common occurrence for the side in recent years, and they will be looking to make happier memories this time around.
“It’s becoming a thing now, but hopefully it’s a different result this time than the first few games.”
“Everybody talks about how great a stadium it is, but it’s the same as every other one if you lose. It would be nice to experience the winning side of it for once.”
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Derry finished top of the pile in the Christy Ring group phase, one point ahead of London, their opponents on Saturday.
The Ulster men won by four when the sides met in Ruislip earlier in the competition, and O’Doherty believes they can take confidence from that game.
“You can take quite a bit from it. We’ve had a first-hand look at their players and seen just what they’re capable of.”
London were particularly impressive in a rout of Meath, who were one of the favourites for the third tier of the hurling championship.
“From the outside, you probably had an idea that Meath were going to be one of the favourites. Then on the first day London beat Meath, so you had a fair idea at that point of just where London were at.”
Although the focus is now on Saturday, O’Doherty still feels the hurt of old losses, particularly their 2023 final defeat to Meath.
“We started so poorly. I think we were maybe 13 or 14 down at half time. We’d left ourselves too much to do and probably ran out of time in the end.”
However, he also admits that their performances in Christy Ring finals haven’t been up to their own standards.
“I don’t think we performed well enough in any of the games to deserve the victory. We felt the last couple of years our performance probably wasn’t what we expected of ourselves.”
“Now we’re back in the final, it’s not so much getting over the line, it’s more about putting on a performance that we’re capable of. Whether that will be enough on Saturday, we’ll find out.”
