Brian McIver admitted that he feared the worst in the early stages of his rein as Derry senior football manager.

Promotion was the furthest thing on McIver's mind when his side trailed Galway by six points in the first round of their Division 2 campaign.

"I remember after about 13, 14 minutes thinking, 'can we get a score here?'. It was almost at that level," the Oak Leaf boss told The Irish Daily Star.

"We had a great number of lads playing together for the first time and they really, really found it hard to find their feet and Galway were playing well at that stage.

"Well believe me, that day in Salthill after 20 minutes I wasn't expecting on April 28 to be heading out to Croke Park for a Division 2 final. Not at all.

"With a young squad of players we set out this year to just to take it one game at a time.

"We didn't want to put them under any undue pressure and we've ended up here playing good football, which is great."

Derry will renew acquaintances with Westmeath in the Division 2 decider on Sunday and the experience of playing in Croke Park will stand to Derry's young players in the future according to their manager.

"We maybe have something like ten lads appearing in Croke Park for the very first time.

"We played Longford a few weeks ago and there was only five of the side that played against Longford last year in the backdoor game - so it just shows you.

"I was actually surprised when somebody said to me that there was that big a change in the team so it's a real young side and they have progressed.

"But young lads tend to do that. They want to learn and they're keen to learn. They're prepared to listen and to change their game and they've all bought into it."

McIver repeated his stance on a possible return for Paddy Bradley who this week received the all-clear following his cruciate ligament injury.

"Paddy hasn't played any football for his club as yet. If he's doing really, really well for the club later down the line we'll take a look at how he's progressing." Tweet

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