Longford manager Jack Sheedy says his seasoned campaigners were bullish that they would beat Derry.

The midlanders caused the biggest sensation of the football championship so far when defeating the Oak Leaf County in a first-round Qualifier at Celtic Park on Saturday and there was no shortage of pre-match confidence in the winners' camp according to their manager.

"The older guys like Paul Barden, Brian Kavanagh, Enda Williams and Shane Mulligan, I'd talked to them in the build-up and you could see they were bullish about it," the former Dublin midfielder told The Irish Independent.

"They respected Derry, but they didn't fear them at all. Because they'd beaten them twice before there was no fear or mystique about it. I could see in the players all week, that they were all comfortable about it.

"But to go up and beat them in Celtic Park is even better than what they did before." Tweet

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