TWO consecutive victories for Slaughtneil’s ‘B’ team in in-house games after their win over Derrygonnelly was the catalyst for their dramatic improvement in Armagh yesterday.
The Derry champions produced arguably their best display since the second half against Omagh, when they won Ulster in the same ground two years ago.
Killyclogher were fancied in some quarters to take the Emmet’s, or at the very least take them the distance, but Mickey Moran’s side were vastly superior throughout.
Their direct running game caused Killyclogher untold bother and continually created opportunities down the middle.
From the moment that Meehaul McGrath fired home an early second half goal, they were under little duress.
Slaughtneil assistant manager John Joe Kearney revealed that the week following the Derrygonnelly game was spent on the bottom field at Emmet Park.
“Two nights after another [the ‘B’ team won], the better side. That shows the strength in depth that there is. They won both games.
“There’s that much bite in it and that much competition for places that it’s 10 times better than any challenge match you might arrange outside the county. If you’re at our in-house games, there’s no quarter given.”
It may not have forced Slaughtneil’s hand in terms of changes as they went with the same XV that has served them so well, but their energy was back.
Sé McGuigan was like a man possessed on the edge of the square, tossing defenders out of his way. Meehaul McGrath was superb.
Padraig Cassidy bested his midfield battle with Tiernan McCann.
“Young Feeney has no fear, for the size of him. He rides into tackles and rides through them. Paul McNeill as well, Karl. You couldn’t pick a bad man out of it.
“Sé was due one. He did it on the right day,” said Kearney.
Asked if they’d told their young number 14 that, he replied: “We didn’t, no. We just let him do his own thing. He came good. The football’s in Sé.
“The only thing we did say, generally we tell him to take men on and he’s taking on three men hanging off him. What we said today was if it’s one-on-one take it on, if it’s not, don’t run into a roadblock.”
Karl McKaigue got a handle on Mark Bradley after 10 minutes and kept him scoreless from play beyond the game’s first score.
“He’s no player at all, that Karl McKaigue boy…” jested Kearney, tongue lodged in his cheek.
“I’d say there’s a lot of forwards don’t want to hear about Karl McKaigue being sent to them. You can’t throw him off.
“Young Bradley’s an exceptional player, he’s hard work, and Karl kept him reasonably quiet today.
“And it wasn’t easy, because we were leaving a fair amount of space in front of him.
“He was getting out and getting the ball, but he wasn’t doing a terrible lot with it.
“We were open in the first 10 minutes. We’d talked about setting Paul McNeill in front but whatever way the team went, Frank McEldowney seemed to be the man was sitting, and he wasn’t sitting in the right position at times. Nothing came off it anyway, so we’re happy enough.”
Happy, indeed, to be within an hour of completing the most unfathomable of trebles. Ulster hurling and camogie champions already, the motivation to finish the set is strong.
“I suppose the inference in some of the papers during the week was that Killyclogher were going to take us, and that’s as good an incentive as you can get.
“The other incentive is, dare we mention it, we’ve won Ulster in hurling and camogie, and we have one game to go now to set a record that probably has never been set in the country. That’s also something to drive us on.
“We have one more game against Kilcoo and we know very little about them, but we’ll have a look.
“That would be something else if we could win that Ulster title.”
