Derry have been rejuvenated this spring under new manager Brian McIver, and central to their progress to Sunday's Allianz Football League Division 2 final has been the outstanding form of their explosive full forward Eoin Bradley.

Now fully recovered from the cruciate ligament injury that sidelined him for part of 2011 and most of last season, the John Mitchel's, Glenullin clubman reckons he's playing as well as he has ever done ahead of this weekend's Croke Park duel with Westmeath.

"I'm feeling fresh," he explains.

"I'm 28 now, but I feel like I'm 24 or 25. I'm reaping the benefits of having had a good pre-season, which is something I didn't have last year. I've been training four or five nights a week between the gym and the pitch since last November and that's standing to me.

"It's great to be back and playing well after last year, which was a virtual write-off. I only came back halfway through the season after being out for a year-and-a-half. It was the second time in my Derry career that I had been out for that length of time, having broken my leg in 2004.

"I didn't have a pre-season done last year and I think it showed in the 15 minutes I played against Donegal in the Ulster championship, and the hour I got against Longford in the qualifiers. But that's all behind me and I'm getting a good run at it now thankfully."

In a cruel twist of fate, Eoin's brother and 2008 All Star full forward Paddy suffered his second cruciate ligament injury in the space of 18 months last September, and was only given the all-clear to return to football by a specialist last Monday. Last week, Paddy expressed the fear that his inter-county career could be over after revealing that Brian McIver hadn't been in contact with him, but Eoin is confident that he will be back in the red and white jersey before too long.

"It'll be good to see Patrick back playing again," the younger Bradley enthuses.

"It will take him a while to get back into the swing of things, but if he continues to stick to his training regime, he should be back playing within a matter of weeks. I don't know what the situation is with Patrick and Brian at the moment, but if any player is playing well for his club, I'm sure he'll be brought into the county panel and Patrick probably needs to get a few club games under his belt first."

After a couple of disappointing years, Derry football would appear to be on the rise again. The senior side's achievement in clinching promotion back to Division 1 of the Allianz Football League, coupled with St. Pat's, Maghera's recent Hogan Cup success, means there is a feel-good factor in the Ulster county at present.

"Things have turned around since last year. We didn't have a good 2012, but to be fair to John Brennan (last year's manager), he had a lot of bad luck and was missing a lot of key players through injury," says the man who is simply known to Derry fans as 'Skinner'.

"Obviously, the senior team is going well, we had a good U21 team this year and St. Pat's, Maghera won the All-Ireland Colleges title a few weeks ago. I was delighted for the St. Pat's boys because that's where I went to school myself. I did some commentary for BBC on the MacRory Cup final and was very impressed by them that day. I missed the All-Ireland semi-final, but saw the final where they gave an outstanding performance.

"Sean Marty Lockhart and Martin McConnell did great work with them and hopefully a few of them will make it at senior level. It was also nice to see a fellow Glenullin man, Niall McNicholl, scoring three points. Niall's older brother Eoin was on the last St. Pat's team to win the All-Ireland and is a current member of the Derry senior panel."

Bradley is full of praise for Brian McIver - the former Ballinderry and Donegal manager - for what he has achieved in his short time as Oak Leaf boss.

"Brian has been brilliant. Training has been first class and everyone has bought into what both Brian and Paddy Tally are trying to do. I was over in Australia for a few weeks last September and October, and Peter Fitzpatrick - who played with Down when they reached the All-Ireland final three years ago - had nothing but good things to say about Brian and Paddy, who were part of James McCartan's management team at that time."

He continues: "We really should be going into the league final with a 100 per cent record. It took us 25 minutes to get going in our first match against Galway, by which time the damage was already done. But since then, we haven't been beaten and we've achieved our aim which is to get back up into Division 1. That's where we want to be."

Eoin sees Sunday's Division 2 final as excellent preparation for Derry's Ulster SFC quarter-final against Down in June.

"It would be nice to win the final, but we're be focusing more on the performance than the result," he explains.

"It's good preparation for the championship - I would say a game like this is 40 or 50 per cent better than a friendly. Brian has assembled a very young panel of players over the past few months and a lot of the lads have never played in Croke Park before, so this will be a great experience for them. Brian is probably thinking four or five years down the line with this squad but, at the same time, you want to win something now and no better time to do that than on Sunday."

Derry and Westmeath have enjoyed a keen rivalry going back to the 1994 National League quarter-final which produced a shock victory for the Lake County (who had won the Division 4 title a week previously) over the then All-Ireland champions.

Westmeath also registered a famous victory over Derry in the following year's All-Ireland MFC final, but the Oak Leaf County avenged those defeats when they won the 2004 All-Ireland SFC quarter-final - just three weeks after the late Paidi O Se had guided the Midlanders to their first ever Leinster SFC title.

It's been three weeks since Derry pummelled an understrength and already-promoted Westmeath by 15 points in Celtic Park, but Eoin doesn't expect Brian McIver's men to have it so easy on Sunday.

"It's going to be a completely different game," he predicts.

"Westmeath made nine or 10 changes for the game in Derry and had nothing to play for. We needed a point ourselves to be sure of promotion and we got it. They're obviously a good side, but we're only worrying about ourselves and how we perform.

"Having said that, it would be great to win in Croke Park as it would give us further confidence before the championship. The Down game is coming up in a few weeks' time and they are always very hard to beat.

"They won their last game in the league against Kildare and would have stayed in Division 1 if they hadn't lost to Cork by a last-minute goal. They were unlucky to go down, but James McCartan will be using that win over Kildare as a stepping stone for the championship and we know they are going to be very dangerous opposition for us."

Now in his 10th season as a Derry senior footballer, Bradley is hoping to win an Allianz League Division 2 medal to go alongside the Division 1 medal he garnered in 2008 when Derry defeated Kerry in the final at Parnell Park. His ultimate goal is to win Ulster and All-Ireland honours. The closest Derry have come to lifting the Anglo-Celt Cup during Eoin's career was two years ago when they lost the final to Donegal - a game he missed after rupturing his cruciate ligament in training a week beforehand.

Renowned for his blistering pace and scoring ability, Eoin has been twice nominated for an All Star award. When Glenullin won the Derry SFC title in 2007, Eoin and Paddy were both on the team, while their father Liam was manager. Liam subsequently managed Antrim for four years, leading them to an Ulster final appearance in 2009. He is currently in charge of Derry intermediate outfit Claudy. Tweet

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