Irish Cup final winner was extra special as brother was home from Australia to witness it, reveals Johnny McMurray

“It was a little bit special because my brother Jason has been over from Australia with his family for nine weeks, he goes back on Tuesday,” he said.

“It’s the first time I’ve seen him in three years. It was a great feeling to have them there on such a big occasion.

“He actually predicted I’d come off the bench and score the winner. He showed me a screenshot of a text he sent to the family watching on television. It was a bit of a fairytale.

“To be honest, I didn’t know what I was doing, it was purely instinctive. I don’t even know who flicked it on, I just remember stepping out and seeing it in front of me and I just hoped for the best. The last thing I saw was it coming off Jordan Williamson’s hand, but by that stage I was already away to celebrate.

“Once you connect with a ball that way and you feel it coming off your foot, you know it’s going to be good.

“The next thing I had Leeper (BBC analyst Paul Leeman) in a headlock at the side of the pitch. It was a class feeling and a class moment. It’s something I may never do again — it was great.

“It’s one of those things that not many people get to do; score in a Cup Final.”

While thrilled to send his brother back to Oz with a smile on his face, former Ballymena man McMurray had a degree of sympathy for his ex-employers.

“I have fond memories from my time at Ballymena, there are good people at the club, I still have many friends there,” he went on. “As much as we wanted to win, it was hard to see people cry at the finish.”

McMurray was sprung from the bench on 68 minutes — and what an impact he made.

He added: “It was a dream come true. To be honest, I didn’t know whether I’d be coming off the bench or not.

“Thankfully, I was one of the lads called upon by the gaffer. You think things when you are sitting on the bench, things like, ‘I’ll come on here and score the winner’. When the chance did come, thankfully I was able to put it away. So it was bittersweet — I was disappointed to be left out, but thrilled to have got the winner.

“Josh (Robinson) and I were joking when we were sitting on the bench that we’d both come on and score and that’s the way it worked out, it’s mad. You have to have that belief that you can change the game.”

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