This time next week we’ll be right back into the thick of it in the league – getting our nuts frozen off us in the process, if Met Éireann’s preliminary forecast for next weekend holds true – but the three-week NFL break hasn’t resulted in too much downtime for Aidan O’Shea and Jason Doherty. I doubt that’ll be of concern to either of them at the moment, though, as earlier on this afternoon both featured prominently for DIT who marched impressively to a first-ever Sigerson Cup success, beating UCC in today’s final at Athlone by 3-8 to 0-7. Match report from RTÉ is here.

DIT were always in charge in today’s decider, right from the moment that Aidan O’Shea rose to claim possession from the throw-in. Aidan was dominant at midfield throughout while Jason Doherty, operating at corner-forward, bagged 1-2 for the winners. His well-taken goal shortly before half-time – drilled into the corner after he’d claimed possession from a clever Tomas O’Connor knock-down – was the score that really put DIT in the driving seat and they were full value for their eventual ten-point winning margin.

While a piece of today’s Sigerson win can justifiably be claimed by several counties, it’s good to see two of our lads – both of whom lined out in last September’s All-Ireland final (and not forgetting Islandeady’s Cormac Gordon, who was on the bench for DIT today) – to the fore in a national title victory. Being on a winning Sigerson team is, of course, a significant achievement in its own right but hopefully the experience will help to drive the lads onto even better things in the county jersey too. Jason, in fact, alluded to this possibility in the following post-match tweet:

Congrats to both Aidan and Jason on their significant contributions to this breakthrough Sigerson success for DIT.