St Pat's have a chance to settle the score with rivals Omagh CBS

Paul Fitzpatrick St Patrick's College enter this Friday's Rannafast Cup (U16 and a half) final as favourites to see off Omagh CBS, but coach Finbar O'Reilly has insisted that complacency won't be an issue for the Cavan boys. The fact that Omagh were the only team to beat this St Pat's side in their three years of colleges football will ensure the Brock champions are focused on the task in hand, said O'Reilly. "If you go on recent results, we've won some games handsomely. But it's a final and form tends to go out the window," stated the Lacken clubman. "You have nerves and different reactions for different players. Plus, Omagh beat us two years ago in the Corn na nOg final and that in itself is enough to guard against complacency. I feel that our lads will hopefully use that experience as a rallying call and every man will deliver a quality performance to win the game." Aside from two injuries (Daniel Hackett and Paul Leddy won't be fit to start) O'Reilly and the management team of Andy McGovern, Gerry Gunn and Fr Kevin Fay have "a full deck" to choose from. O'Reilly admits that Omagh's defeat of Abbey CBS in the other semi-final was a slight surprise. "I would have thought Abbey would have come through. They had only lost to one team, that was us, over the years and I felt they would have had too much power but Omagh hit them with a goal and a point in the last couple of minutes to sneak that game. It's a slight surprise but Omagh are a quality team in their own right. We'll have to be on our game to beat them." The preparations couldn't have gone better, he revealed. "It has been absolutely A1, we couldn't have asked any more," said O'Reilly. "We have had 35-plus training sessions done since the last week in July, which includes a number of gym sessions as well. They have applied themselves incredibly well, they've taken no short cuts whatsoever and did everything that was asked of them. We feel we're in a good enough place going into this final, please God we perform on the night. "We have a lot of pace right across the team, we have some fantastic scoring potential, we have a tremendous free-taker in Ryan Connolly and we have a very good defensive system in place. I make no apologies for that, we have put a lot of work on the defensive end of our game and the most we've conceded in the last 12 months is 1-8. "The lads work incredibly hard to a designated system and to date it has worked. Hopefully they will put that same work rate and work ethic in again on Friday night and if they do, hopefully we'll get the result." The team is captained by Pierce Smith of Crosserlough, who recently won the Man of the Match award in the MFC Division 2 final. Among the key players are Connolly, centre-back Cian McManus, corner-forwards Ben Conaty and Ronan O'Reilly and midfielders Thomas Galligan and David Brady, while Jason Rahill and Paul Sexton are important leaders in a water-tight defence. Friday, November 16 Ranafast Cup final. St Pat's, Cavan v Omagh CBS. Emyvale, 7pm.