Drumlane gear up for final hurdle

GAA news

Drumlane Sons of O’Connell will break new ground this Saturday (1.15pm, St Tiernach’s Park) when they take on Stewartstown Harps in the Ulster Club Junior Football Championship final.

This group of players have come a long way in a short space of time and, says captain Ryan Connolly, they are enjoying every minute of the journey.

“We hadn’t any eyes on an Ulster final at that stage [when he spoke to the Celt pre-championship] and a week after after the first game against Arva we definitely didn’t have but we have turned it around and we have some momentum going now so it’s great,” Connolly told this newspaper yesterday (Tuesday).

He confirmed that despite a bit of an injury scare, he will be fit to go this Saturday.

“Ah look, I’m not too bad. I am known for having bad ankles, it was a bit of a collision, yer man fell on me but I am well used to having to get it right in a short space of time. I’ll be 100pc for Saturday, yeah.”

The Ulster Championship is a different challenge to playing within the county, he agreed.

“These Ulster games, you try to do your homework as much as you can and get videos and talk to lads from different counties but you don’t really know what you’re up against until you go out there.

“Newtownbutler probably weren’t at the level of Craigbane or Clones but at the same time I probably thought the way our training was going that we were coming to the boil nicely and there was a performance like that in us. It was very pleasing, we had a very good spread of scores, a couple of boys who had maybe been having quieter games in Ulster really exploded on Saturday and it will do their confidence the world of good going in this weekend.

“The six-day turnaround is the same for Stewartstown. I think it’s a positive – it’s Tuesday afternoon already, we’re training tomorrow night. It probably doesn’t give you much time to dwell on it, you just go back to work or college and train. If you have two or three weeks, maybe you might get caught up in the occasion.

“We have a lot of very young lads although they haven’t really got caught up in any occasion so far. Stewartstown picked up a couple of knocks last weekend too so it’s very much 50-50 for both teams.

“We’re lucky enough that we have been in Clones the last two weeks and the final is back in Clones again. It might be nice to get around the province playing in different county grounds but there’s a lot to be said for being familiar with the venue.

“It’s a different sort of challenge, you can do as much homework as you want but it’s not as if you’re playing Arva or you’re playing Killeshandra two or three times a year and you know who the main lads are and what they’re good at.

“It's a bit of a novelty in that sense, it probably leads to a more open game. There’s tactics to an extent but nobody really knows each other, you just go out and adjust as the game goes on. There is probably a wee bit less pressure in that your main objective for the year has been achieved but you still want to win an Ulster title when you’re in a final. We’re really enjoying it, we’re really enjoying training and we’re getting more and more weeks under our belts together so it’s great.”

Stewartstown are highly regarded, having topped Division 3 in Tyrone and cruised through their Ulster matches to date.