THE team spirit and work ethic that saw St Mary’s emerge from left field to win the Sigerson Cup in 2017 will inspire all of their rivals next year.
Queen’s University star Shea Heffron is one of a number of players on the QUB side, including Derry duo Emmet Bradley and Niall Keenan, Louth’s Ryan Burns and Fermanagh’s James McMahon, with inter-county experience. The Armagh native says Queen’s will use their Group B games against Donegal, Monaghan and Fermanagh to prepare for the Sigerson Cup campaign that follows.
“We had a decent Ryan Cup performance but we were beaten by University of Limerick by two points,” Heffron explained.
“It was a poor performance from the team but we’re looking to push on and we’re under good management with Aidan O’Rourke who has put in a lot of work to date and, no doubt, we’ll put in a bit more over Christmas.
“We have IT Tralee in round one of the Sigerson and we’ll look at the McKenna Cup as a good platform to get a lot of experience and game-time into the legs ahead of that Sigerson campaign.”
The success of St Mary’s last year has shown their Belfast rivals, and every other side in the competition, what can be done when ability, morale and momentum are aligned. Heffron hopes that what ‘the Ranch’ achieved will inspire Queen’s to success next year.
“You look at the success that they had off the back of nothing really and you can take a lot of confidence from that,” said the Actuarial Science final year student.
“We’ll take confidence from that and we have good players who can drive that. We beat St Mary’s in the league last year and when they won the Sigerson last year you were comparing like for like and you were thinking ‘We were as good as them’ but they had that spirit and that team work ethic and that’s what you need going into the Sigerson Cup because it’s not pretty football.
“With the personnel we have this year we’re in a better position for success.”
