Ulster Club Junior Football Championship semi-final:
Faughanvale (Derry) v Templeport (Cavan)
DERRY champions Faughanvale and Cavan junior championship winners Templeport meet at Brewster Park tomorrow in an Ulster semi-final that the managers of both clubs are excited about.
Faughanvale have had to scrap hard go get to this point, needing a replay to defeat Drum in the county final before disposing of Tyeone kingpins Brackaville at Healy Park a fortnight ago.
Therefore it’s the fourth game on the trot that they’ve played at a county ground, and player-manager Joe Gray is urging his team to enjoy the experience.
“It’s something to relish,” he said.
“It’s not every day you get to play in county grounds and you get to walk out in front of big stands.
“I’ve said to the players ‘don’t get overawed with it but go out and enjoy it because you might not get the chance to play in them again’.”
And the Derry men may well have to raise their game again when they cross swords with a high-flying and strongly-fancied Templeport side.
Their manager Fintan Reilly is also looking forward to the big day, but stresses that tomorrow is all about the result.
“It is important for us to get to an Ulster final,” he said.
“Semi-finals are for winning. It is a big day for the club, and it would be a massive for them to win.”
The Cavan junior champions will arrive in Enniskillen buoyed with all the confidence of a side that has yet to taste defeat this season.
They sit at the top of the fourth tier in Cavan football and, with promotion guaranteed, should soon add the league title to the championship they won last month.
St Aidan’s were very impressive in their dismantling of Donegal champions Naomh Ultan in the Ulster quarter-finals.
The game was well and truly over as a contest by half-time, as St Aidan’s led 2-7 to 1-3, with the Breffni boys hitting the Donegal men with an early blitzkrieg they could never recovered from.
Faughanvale upset the odds to see off Brackaville in the quarter-final in their first game on the Ulster stage since 1999, producing some of their best football of the season to come from behind several times before digging out a one-point win.
“It was a good performance,” said Gray.
“We weren’t great in the first half, to be honest. I thought we were a wee bit sluggish. They were more dominant in the first half but we managed it well to go in even at half-time.
“Once we had a wee chat at the break and made a few wee positional changes, we were dominant in the second half and really came to the fore.
“The more pleasing thing was that we were behind by three or four points in both halves and we kept coming back, we never stopped and we never gave in.
“The buzz of winning and the buzz of going on a wee run in the tournament creates a wee bit of energy and people are excited. We look forward to another big game on Sunday.”
