Northern Switchgear Antrim Senior Football Championship
semi-final: St Gall's v Lámh Dhearg (Wednesday, Ahoghill, 8pm)
THE second finalist in this year’s Antrim Senior Football Championship will be decided on Wednesday when west Belfast clubs St Gall’s and Lámh Dhearg make the trip to Ahoghill to battle it out for the right to face Cargin in next Sunday's decider.
St Gall’s in the latter stages of the Antrim SFC is nothing new, although their record-breaking run of consecutive titles was halted at eight last year, when Cargin defeated them at the quarter-final stage. There was no repeat for the De La Salle Park club in this year’s last-eight, although Portglenone certainly did test them, with St Gall’s eventually getting on top to run out 0-15 to 0-11 winners.
While there has been an injection of young blood into the St Gall’s side in recent years, with Jackson McGreevy, Brendan Bradley and Conor Burke all becoming regulars, it was left to the experienced names to pull them through the last day, with Micky Pollock and Karl Stewart doing the bulk of the scoring.
Since that quarter-final win at the start of September, St Gall's have been left without any real action, although they did claim yet another Kilmacud Sevens title on September 17. That will surely have helped them tick over ahead of of Wednesday night's clash although, with vast experience throughout the team, they are well capable of managing the gap between games.
In Kevin Niblock and Kieran McGourty, St Gall's have excellent playmakers who are more than capable of turning scorer as-well-as provider, while Sean Burke is more than capable of dominating around the middle.
There is also the vast experience and leadership of Sean Kelly at centre-back, who remains the heartbeat of the team and he is expecting a tough test against the Red Hands: “They [Lámh Dhearg] will be tough opposition for us - they have always been tough to play," he said.
“They have Paddy Cunningham, Ryan Murray and Conor Murray in their forward line, so we will have to up our game from the last day [against Portglenone] if we are going to progress.”
The aforementioned trio are certainly central to Lámh Dhearg's hopes and they were instrumental in getting the Hannahstown club into Wednesday night's clash after two hard-fought encounters against Rossa in the quarter-final.
In the drawn game, Kevin Murray's side failed to fire in the first-half, but Ryan Murray took over in the second period and it took a late Rossa rally to force a replay. Murray injured his ankle in the replay, but did see out the game as Brendan McComb, Declan Lynch and Cunningham took charge as Lámh Dhearg fought back from seven down to win by three.
Murray is the only real concern for the Red Hands and, while older brother Kevin was delighted with the spirit his side showed the last day, he knows it will take a much greater effort to set up a repeat of last year's final.
“We know we are going to have to improve for St Gall’s, who are still the top team in the county," he said.
“For us showing that character, it’s about building into the semi. If we fight the way we fought against Rossa, we won’t be too far off but, again, we are going to have to improve in a lot of areas to be able to challenge St Gall’s.”
