CJ McGourty leapt into the arms of coach Kane Connor and fisted the air with delight as the roar of the Croke Park horn sounded to confirm Fermanagh as All-Ireland champions in his first year as manager.

After a replay defeat in the 2022 final and a semi-final loss in 2023, the former Antrim footballer was brought in with an aim to steer the Erne side to a repeat of 2020 and they did just that winning all of their championship games.

“Unbelievable feeling,” said a beaming McGourty after the game.

“I can’t say enough about that group of players. Just fantastic. They played the championship minutes all year, like we asked them to do down the stretch.

"I think we kept the ball for the last two minutes, which was important. It wasn’t outstanding today, but it was good enough to get the result.

"Them girls haven’t won in Croke Park before and now they have, that’s a credit to them.”

While McGourty has emphasised all year how much of a team effort success is he did have time to point out the stunning individual quality of Derrygonnelly’s Eimear Smyth.

“She’s pretty good, isn’t she?” he smiled.

“I’ve said all year she’s an exceptional talent. When she’s knocking on your door every day to get better, that’s a sign of a world-class player and every time she’s coming to training with a different move or a different wee jink, trying to improve her game.

"There’s loads of them like that. In those championship moments, you need an extra wee move to try and get out of trouble, they count for a lot.

"Not only her, everyone’s a credit, but, as I say, what she scored today is a norm for her.”

It was another rapid start from Fermanagh with Smyth’s goal after nine minutes adding to early scores from herself and Bláithín Bogue.

That goal would prove to be the difference between the sides, in the end, as McGourty added a fast start gave them the confidence to grow.

“We’re always looking for a good start, we’re always looking for a foothold in the game,” he said.

“Our problem is, we only play for 10 minutes at a time and then we go into a wee rut for time. There’s 10-minute patches, but yeah, it was important to get a good start.

"I think we were real confident as a management team that we could put it up to Louth even though they’re a division above, but I suppose there’s always that doubt.

"We brought them in at halftime and said ‘You are good enough to win an All-Ireland'. Them 10 or 15 minutes helped us to build that lead before halftime.”

The first 10 minutes of the second half would be a pivotal period in Dublin, as despite four big goal chances, neither team would find the net with Niamh McManus going close at one end before Tempo’s Cadhla-Cara Bogue plucked the ball just shy of the goal line when it seemed to be rolling in from Lucy White’s shot.

“I’ll not tell you the language I was using,” McGourty remarked on that period of the game.

“They are the big championship moments we talk about, the big championship plays. I thought Cadhla was exceptional, honest to God.

"The amount of kick-outs she won and we said to her, she was due to tag (Aoife) Russell, who is a phenomenal player, but we also said to Cadhla to make sure Russell is going the other way.

"Eventually, if Russell is tired then it’s very hard to keep going forwards. I thought Cadhla did an unbelievable job.”

Kick-outs have been a strong point for Fermanagh all year, beginning with the opening All-Ireland group game with Sligo in Donagh where they won half of the Zebra’s kick-outs with a high press.

While they didn’t win as many of Rebecca Lambe Fagan’s kicks on Sunday, it’s hard to recall the Erne side losing any of their own, with Bláithín and Cadhla-Cara Bogue playing a huge hand in that.

McGourty said: “My big philosophy is kick-outs. If you can’t win your own kick-outs, you’re in big trouble. It’s an attack and something we’ve worked on all year.

"We’ve had five or six different kick-out calls, when teams play zonally against us, we know what kick-out to set up, player to player.

"Different teams give you looks but again in the championship moments, when we were one up or two up, we got a kick-out away easy and that’s something we worked on to redeem pressure.

"Going into today, we turned over 48 per cent of other teams' kick-outs throughout the year. That’s a big, big stat. We didn’t turn over many today, which we would be disappointed about.

"Kick-outs are massive, especially in ladies and in underage, you can get camped in for five or six minutes. I believe in the girl's game, if you can win your own kick-outs, it gives you a platform, to have a good 10 minutes or so. Megan was very, very good in there today. A couple of really good kick-outs.”

McGourty and his backroom team will be keen to see where they can take this Fermanagh side in the coming years and will take great encouragement from Leitrim’s intermediate final win over Tyrone after their own game.

Fermanagh defeated Johnny Garrity’s side by a goal in February in Division Four, with Enniskillen Gaels’ Eimear Keenan involved in their backroom team.