AIB Ulster Club Junior Football Championship semi-final: Rock St Patrick’s (Tyrone) v Newtownbutler First Fermanaghs (Fermanagh) (tomorrow, Clones, 2.30pm)
IT’S a long journey back to the top for former Fermanagh kingpins Newtownbutler, but they’re well on their way.
Just a few seasons ago, they were senior champions of the Erne county, but since then, fortunes have plummeted, and they have been operating in the junior grade in recent times.
With the Fermanagh JFC title in the bag, they have their sights set on the provincial crown, and they take on Tyrone champions Rock in tomorrow’s Ulster semi-final at Clones.
Brendan McBrien, Ryan Carson, Shane Leonard, James Connolly and Frank Mulligan all have senior championship medals from the club’s heyday 2007 triumph, and their experience will be vital against a Tyrone side with quite a record in the Ulster JFC series.
“Their experience will be important, but at the end of the day, it will be about who performs on the day,” said Newtown manager Vinny Connolly.
Rock have won the provincial title twice, and are chasing a history-making treble. Ciaran Gourley and Aidan Girvan were in the title-winning teams of 2007 and 2014, and remain key members of the team.
“Rock have that experience and they’re going to be very hard to beat, but our boys are up for it, and looking forward to it. It will be a good hard game,” said Connolly.
“Our priority was to win that county junior championship, and we were under a lot of pressure. So we won that, and getting into Ulster was a big thing.”
Wing-back Jarlath Jackman and centre-back Sean Maguire are key men in the Fermanagh side’s challenge, the former deadly accurate from placed balls.
Rock have a deadly strike pair in Aidan McGarrity and Conor McCreesh, and manager Adrian Nugent is confident their teammates will work tirelessly to get the ball to the shooters.
“When you have a couple of key forwards, the idea is to get the ball to them, and the last day it worked a treat,” he said.
“We have two big players there, and sometimes when you have two big players, you don’t see the others who are doing incredible work, the likes of Tommy Bloomer, Paudie Ward, Eamon Ward, all working their socks off.”
But the foundation is the Tyrone side’s defence, which has conceded just 1-8 in the two previous games in the series.
“We have a very strong defence. We have got Niall Mullan at full-back and Stephen Mullan (no relation) at centre half back, and they have been formidable all year.
“Niall is an excellent reader of the game, he’s fast, he’s tenacious, he’s good under the high ball.
“We have reshuffled the defence a few times this year to find the right formula, and I think at this stage we’ve found it.
“Defensively we are very strong, we have Aidan Girvan and Ciaran Gourley working in that department too.
“That’s the platform we have worked on all year, building from defence.”
Rock were highly impressive in their quarter-final dismissal of Cornafean of Cavan, but Nugent expects a much more testing time at Clones.
“Quarter-finals are very soon forgotten about. We’re now in a semi-final, and we’re focused clearly on Newtonwbutler, we’re thinking of nothing else.
“Clones is four or five miles away from Newtownbutler, so it’s nearly like a home venue for them. They have got a lot of things in their favour.”
