Derry midfielder Conor Glass said his side's three-point Allianz Football League Division 2 win over Tyrone meant everything to them after a "very hard 18 months".
The 2024 Division 1 league champions ended a 12-game winless streak in competitive outings, stretching back to their penalty shootout victory over Mayo on 28 June 2024.
In a bruising, low-scoring encounter, Derry outscored their promotion rivals 0-05 to 0-01 in the final quarter to win on a 1-15 to 1-12 scoreline, a run kick-started by Brendan Rogers' two-pointer, with Shane McGuigan (two) and Conor McAteer landing scores down the stretch as Ciaran Meenagh's side claimed a deserved and overdue victory.
"It probably means everything to this group this year," Glass told RTÉ Sport after the win. "We're doing everything right behind the scenes. We're sticking together.
"It's been a hard 18 months for this team but we knew it was going to come good at some stage.
"A lot of players lost confidence but we just had to rely on each other and stick together.We knew it was going to come, it was just a matter of when and thankfully it came tonight.
"It's only the end of January so there's a hell of a lot of long season to go."
Derry's Division 2 campaign had started on a downbeat note, a limp second-half display seeing them lose by three points to Meath in Croke Park.
The result was perceived as enormously damaging to their promotion chances, giving an added urgency to this evening's game against their neighbours. Glass said they were determined they were not going to go down meekly this weekend.
"We didn't hold our heads up high against Meath last week," he said. "I think a lot of our boys backed out of a few challenges and we were just bullied around the pitch. We weren't going to do that tonight.
"One thing we challenged ourselves was our character, our grittiness and sticking together. So I thought we did that in spades today but we have a hell of a lot to improve on as well."
Glass himself powered home Derry's goal in the run-in to half-time - "our forwards created that space for me. When you get those chances, you've got to take them" - the midfielder was quick to pay tribute to Derry's defensive showing in the closing stages.
"They had a late goal opportunity, the boys just threw themselves on it and Gareth McKinless came out with the ball.
"Paudie McGrogan, Gareth McKinless, [Diarmuid] Baker, you can name all of them. Shane McGuckin in nets, I thought he had a really good first half under a lot of tricky high balls and Brian Kennedy underneath them. For such a young chap and probably inexperienced at county level it's great to see that."
