CROSSMAGLEN joint-manager John McEntee is confident Aaron Kernan will recover from injury in time for Sunday’s county final against Armagh Harps.
The 31-year-old was forced off with a groin strain in a hard-fought semi-final victory against Maghery, threatening to derail Cross’ ambitions of winning a 19th Armagh championship in 20 years.Wednesday marked the first anniversary of the half-back’s retirement from the inter-county scene. According to his former team-mate with club and county, Kernan's commitment to the Crossmaglen cause remains undiminished, giving the 2005 Young Footballer of the Year a fighting chance of making Sunday’s decider.
“He’s been working hard, Aaron is a true professional when it comes to being injured and he does whatever he has to do to make himself available,” McEntee said.
“Progress is really good and we’d be very confident that he’ll be fit to play.”
One Crossmaglen player who will definitely miss out on Sunday is Diarmuid McConville. Sent-off in the semi-final's closing stages on a straight red, his suspension was halved to a one-match ban after an appeal was heard on Tuesday evening.
McEntee’s co-manager Oisín McConville admitted before the semi-final that Crossmaglen's performances had been underwhelming. Missing the services of Jamie Clarke, on sabbatical in the USA, they have also had to deal with a number of injury set-backs. McEntee is optimistic, however, that Crossmaglen are coming to the boil at the right time.
Moreover, recent underage successes would suggest the club’s proud tradition will transfer to a new generation and 19-year-old Aidan Rushe has looked a natural fit in the full-back role in his debut season.
“We’ve been working hard this past few weeks in training, like every team working on things that we need to improve on, we feel coming into this match we’ve benefited from the few weeks between the matches and we’re ready for another challenge,” McEntee added.
“There’s still a lot of hunger in the team and we’ve brought a few members of the minor panel into the team this year, they’re been pushing hard in training and they’re very, very keen and they’re not just there to make numbers. That augurs well for the future. Competition’s got more and more stiff in recent years with Armagh, so our focus this year’s on winning our county title and we’ll see what happens next year.”
The six-time All-Ireland club champions face a burgeoning Armagh Harps side on Sunday. Backboned by seasoned campaigners Charlie Vernon and Gareth Swift, the Harps ran out convincing winners against Ballymacnab to set up a repeat of last year’s final. Crossmaglen cruised to a 14-point win against the city side on that particular occasion, but McEntee isn't anticipating another one-sided affair.
“When you look at their performances after that match, we just had a purple patch that day - it wouldn’t be a true reflection of Armagh Harps or how we were playing up to that match," he said.
“This year, they’re much improved and we’ve been hampered with injuries all year. We’re slowly getting into our stride now, so it’ll be a much more even game than last year’s.”
