Electric Ireland Sigerson Cup quarter-final: St Mary's UC, Belfast v University College Cork (Abbotstown, Dublin, 7pm Wednesday, live streaming on www.youtube.com/ELECTRICIRELAND, GAA.ie/GAANow, and www.Electricireland.ie/HEC)
SAINTS v Skull-ers - and St Mary’s boss Gavin McGilly insists the challenge posed by UCC is every bit as daunting as that sounds.
The Cork institution may not be viewed as one of the favourites for this year’s Electric Ireland Sigerson Cup but its skull & crossbones logo has been regularly raised in triumph – 23 times in total, placing them joint second on the roll of honour along with holders NUI Galway (the former UCG).
Indeed, UCC’s most recent Sigerson Final victory came at the expense of St Mary’s, in 2019 at Portlaoise.
Sure, university sides obviously change regularly, but reputation and tradition matter, and UCC have the history and the heritage.
More importantly, they have the players, says McGilly. The ‘UCK’ nickname holds true too, with seven Kerrymen on their panel, along with a dozen Kingdom representatives on their squad of 35 (and two from Tipperary).
Listry’s Ruairi Murphy came on and scored a point for Kerry against Donegal in Ballybofey on Sunday while Dylan Geaney of Dingle had a brief appearance as a blood sub.
“If you go through their panel, every one of their players has represented Kerry, Cork, or Tipperary at senior level,” says McGilly. ““They’ll be stronger. There’s not many teams that could spring the likes of Cathal O’Mahony or Sean Quilter off the bench. It shows you the talent they have, but we’ll have to deal with that…
“We know for sure this is our biggest test, by a stretch. This is the best team we’ve met all season. We’ll have to up our performance levels.
“It’s going to take our best performance of the season, without a doubt – but I think it’s in them to do that. We’ve been building nicely and hopefully the whole thing comes together on Wednesday night.”
UCC lost their opener at home, 0-10 to 2-7 against a powerful looking University of Limerick outfit, who then lost on penalties to Technological Uni Dublin before thrashing Carlow 4-10 to 1-4 to reach a Tuesday quarter-final against Galway.
UCC receovered from their opening loss to see of ATU Galway 1-12 to 0-8, then overcame Queen’s in a penalty shoot-out to get to the last eight.
St Mary’s have had smoother progress to this stage, winning their two outings by being strong defensively and generally in command, beating SETU Carlow by 0-14 to 0-8 then ATU Sligo by 1-10 to 0-6.
Those were both away games for ‘The Ranch’. They have to travel again today, but at least it’s not the long journey to the Mardyke, instead the match takes place on the neutral territory of Abbottstown, Dublin.
“We’re on the road again. Lads are out on teaching practice and with roadworks we’ll have to get on the road earlier,” says Annaghmore clubman McGilly.
“It’s been a good campaign so far, definitely, although it only really gets going at the quarter-final stage.
“Our ambition each season is to go as far we possibly can in the Sigerson Cup. Unfortunately last year we agonisingly missed out on making the knockout stages, going down to DCU and Maynoooth with goals in the final minutes of both games costing us a spot in the last eight. “We wanted to put that right.”
St Mary’s have expanded beyond teacher training into other degree courses too, but they still have a very small pick compared to most of their rivals.
However, McGilly has belief that St Mary’s can reach the semi-finals once more: “This is the strongest our squad has been this season. All good, everybody’s in good tune, we’re in good form for it and looking forward to it, definitely.
“This is where you want to be. We’ll give our absolute best and see where that takes us.
“You have to be solid at the back – and when you’re coming up against Kerry and Cork forwards you know rightly that if you leave them space they will hurt you. We’ll have to be defensively solid again and we’ll have to increase our scoring tally.
“The thing about Sigerson, every game takes on a whole new meaning, new life. What happened last week with them and Queen’s will have no relevance to our game.
“We have to make sure we’re in the game with 10 minutes to go, that’s our target, and then we’d see where we could go from there.”
