Ulster Club Intermediate Championship preliminary round: Ballinascreen (Derry) v O’Neill Shamrocks (Monaghan) (Tomorrow, St Colm’s Ballinsacreen, 1pm)
O’NEILL Shamrocks have had to wait a few years to get back onto the Ulster stage as they prepare to face Ballinsacreen in tomorrow’s preliminary round Ulster Club Intermediate Championship at the home of the Derry champions.
The Monaghan champions reached the provincial junior final back in 2015 losing out to fellow Derry side Steelstown and such is the high standard of intermediate club football in Monaghan it has taken the Clontibret/Cremartin amalgamation four years to get their hands on the county title.
They did so, putting a final defeat last year to Emmet Og, who went on to reach the All-Ireland final, behind them by defeating fierce rivals Corduff in the final 3-8 to 0-3.
That game was the first slice of action Muireann Atkinson tasted in three and a half months after missing the whole of the summer with a knee injury she sustained in the week leading up to Monaghan’s Ulster championship semi-final with Armagh.
Torn cartilage in her knee meant she had to undergo an operation but she tried to rush herself back, setting herself back further, meaning she missed Monaghan’s entire championship campaign and all but one game of O’Neill Shamrocks county trail as well.
And with a lesson well learned about rushing back, she is thankful to her team-mates for ensuring her football season did not end back in June.
“It has taken a while to get back,” said Atkinson.
“It took us a few years to find our feet at intermediate level. The intermediate competition is very competitive in Monaghan and really we spent the first couple of years building.
“Last year we came close to winning the county title but got beat in the replay by a point and Emmet Og went on to reach the All-Ireland final.
“The final was my first game back – winning it and I got player of the match so it was pretty nice to get back at it that way.
“I looked on it that I can take something bad and turn it into something good and that was my focus when trying to get back playing football.
“The standard in our team is so good that I am grateful they were able to win all the games to get to the final and that I was able to help them in the final.”
O’Neill Shamrocks will be able to call on the senior county experience of Hannah McSkeane and Niamh Kerr while they also saw their minor players in Jennifer Duffy, who is also a part of the senior county setup, Caoimhe Ward and Kate Carragher reach the All-Ireland minor final with the Farney County last month.
Atkinson is expecting a real battle with Ballinascreen tomorrow. They play as a senior team in their own county and this year under Brian Duffy they secured back-to-back county titles defeating Ballymaguigan 3-8 to 0-3 in the final back in July.
Derry captain Cait Glass plays at centre half back while netminer Kathryn Connery is also the Oak Leaf number one with Dania Donnelly also on the county team. LouiseMurphy scored all but one of her side’s eight points, five from frees, in the final their goals came from Casey McKenna, Jackie Donnelly and Eimear McGuigan, while Aine McAllister is a crucial cog in the Ballinsacreen engine linking defence with attack and she picked up the player of the match award.
“Monaghan is a tough county to get out of and you don’t look beyond that. I think we will go into Sunday’s game against Ballinascreen as underdogs. They are a senior team in their county and they have experience of playing in Ulster just last year.
“Emmet Og scrapped and fought their way past the teams in Ulster last year by just a point or two, that is how tough it is and it will be no different for any of the team this year.”
Atkinson is in her final year at DCU where she is training to be a PE and Biology teacher. She was one of four Ulster players, including Yvonne Bonner and Aishling Sheridan, who this time last year went to Australia as part of the CrossCoders AFLW recruit camp.
Bonner was offered a rookie contract with Greater Western Sydney Giants as a result and she has stayed on for another year,
Sheridan was offered a contract with Collingwood some eight months later and she will begin her first season in the coming months.
For Atkinson, however, while the lure of playing a professional sport is inticing, she says the buzz she gets from the game just does not have the same effect than when she plays gaelic football, adding that she is also keen to finish her studies at home first.
The door is not entirely shut on the prospect of trying her hand at Aussie Rules but if she had the choice between playing a final in the MGM and Croke Park there would only be one winner.
“I suppose it would be nice to experience a professional sport, but I don’t think I would get the same buzz from it as when I play gaelic football. Over there if I were playing in the MGM on the biggest stage, I think I would give anything to be playing in Croke Park instead, she says.
“I think a lot of Irish players want to get the chance to experience playing a professional sport and if the opportunity arose again in the future it is something I might consider.
“When I went over to Australia last year to the CrossCoders camp they knew I wanted to finish my college education first. The door might be open again in the future but I am not going to purposely go looking.”
Ulster Club Junior Championship preliminary round: Clan na Gael (Armagh) v Con Magees Glenravel (Antrim) (Tomorrow, Davitt Park, Lurgan, 2pm)
THE junior club championship is an unpredictable one with the eventual winners coming from any one of nine teams in the competition.
They could well emerge from tomorrow’s preliminary round game between Armagh champions Clan na Gael and their Antrim counterparts Con Magees, Glenravel.
For the majority of teams preparing to embark on the provincial trail this is new territory and although they will have targeted a county title as a dream or ambition at the start of the year they will not have gone beyond that. Until now that is, and for all the county champions, what happens in Ulster is an added bonus.
That said, however, both Lurgan based Clan na Gael and Glenravel, planted between Martinstown and Cargan, are ready to embark on an Ulster crusade they hope will not end tomorrow.
These two teams have been making inroads in their counties in recent years with both still relatively new in terms of fielding senior teams within their clubs.
Glenravel, having first fielded a senior team in 2017 their first at the ‘A’ grade, won their second county title – their first at intermediate in their county - following on from their junior win two years ago, while Clan na Gael won their first county title just five years after they first played senior football in the club.
Both clubs had been working hard in the years prior to first being able to provide senior football and the fruit of that underage work is now firmly yielding results.
Tomorrow’s hosts Clan na Gael had a comprehensive 4-15 to 2-8 win over Clonmore in the Armagh junior final just a few weeks ago and no doubt that high score line will have caught the attention of Glenravel’s management team.
Three first half goals gave them a nine-point half-time lead and they never looked back.
Full-forward Roisin O’Hagan scored 2-2 but Ella Reid top-scored with nine points with Lara Marsden, daughter of Diarmaid of Armagh’s 2002 All-Ireland Sam Maguire-winning team, scoring 1-1 from centre half-back and Naomh Beattie grabbed the fourth.
This is a very young team managed by Brendan Campbell, Ben McCrory and Kevin O’Hagan with all but three players still in their teens and fantastically they have a 53-year-old corner forward in Brenda Loughran, who was able to enjoy the club’s first county championship alongside her daughter Angela, who picked up the player-of-the-match award.
Glenravel’s ability to grab goals proved St Paul’s II undoing, and despite outscoring them 10 scores to eight, lost 4-4 to 0-10 in the decider earlier this month Ellen Hynds and Molly Woulahan with the first half goals to give them a three point lead at half-time.
As well as having scoring power, they have a superb shot- stopper in Orla Donnelly, who came to her side’s rescue denying St Paul’s a number of times during the game.
The game was in balance after the resumption until the eventual winners stunned the opposition with two goals in a minute through Clare Emmerson and Torie Edgar, who finished as top scorer with 2-3 of her side’s 4-4 total.
This is anyone’s game and at this stage in the competition it is all to play for but no doubt Clan na Gael will be hoping to make home advantage count.
