Currin pushing for promotion

Maitiú Monaghan

There is a buzz around the Currin footballers this season that has been absent for many years.

The history of the club is littered with Championship success, upsetting the odds and punching above their weight.

A couple of barren years fighting in Junior have been difficult, with very little to cheer about out in Scotshouse.

However, they are back in the quarter-finals of the Junior Football Championship this season, and based on their performances to date are right in the mix for promotion.

Club captain, Stephen Smyth, has played Senior football for Currin, along with a number of the more experienced players, including the McCaffreys; Conor, Ciaran, Colum, and Enda.

They’re all still getting stuck in, with Conor scoring 0-2 from full-back last weekend.

What’s changed this season is the coming of age of a talented new generation of footballers.

“Its always a learning curve for younger players,” Smyth told the Celt after Currin’s six point win over Killeevan on Sunday.

“For Aaron Smyth and Zach Rooney, I think it is there second year. They were around last year, but this is the first year that they have really stepped it up.

“The pair of them are great wee footballers, the future of Currin football is bright.

“It has been great learning for them, I went through it myself back in the day. It is a shock to the system, it points you in the right direction going forward.”

Sunday’s tie against local rivals Killeevan was a hard-fought affair, with the Newbliss club reduced to 13 men mid-way through the second half.

Despite trailing at half-time, Currin rose above the noise in a fraught second half, and coasted home to victory.

“It is always hard against Killeevan, it has been tight these last four or five years, we knew we would be up against it. It was good to get a nice physical game like that, sets up for the knockout stages.

“You can get a bit complacent when you know you are through, but after the last game we knew it was very important that we put in a good performance and take that forward and into the quarter-finals.

“Myself, the McCaffreys, we’re all well experienced at this stage. We’ve won a right bit with the club down through the years.

“It is about us using our experience to guide those lads through. There was a lot of words said at half-time today, and a few positives from the older boys to settle things down. They responded well in the second half- it is good to see they are listening.

Smyth wasn’t short on bigging up Currin’s prospects at full-time. He told The Celt that promotion from the Junior Football Championship is “the big aim” for Currin.

“This club has been Junior too long, the boys are well fit for Intermediate football. That has to be the goal, and it is the goal.

“By hook or by crook, we need to get up this season. Finishing as high in the league as we could, getting to a championship final, obviously we will try and win it.

“Always the goal is to play at a better level, and bring younger lads with us. They’re well fit for it.”