RELEGATION fears have given way to an air of optimism on the lough shore as Ardboe look to brighter days ahead in the Tyrone championship.
They’ll feature on an historic opening day for the 2024 series, facing Edendork in the first-ever game to be played under lights in Dungannon.
A re-developed O’Neill Park will host a clash of two sides that have never been far from trouble in the league, but having negotiated their way to safety, feel they can begin to express themselves.
“It’s probably been a league of two halves really. In the first half we probably didn’t represent the club very well in terms of results,” said Ardboe full-back Oisin Devlin.
“With a turnover in terms of players, we never really represented ourselves well, but in the last turn of the league we started to push on a wee bit more and started to get a wee bit more structure going and got the results that got us out of relegation trouble.
“It probably has stood us in good stead coming into the championship in that we have built a bit of momentum.
“We were disappointed with a couple of fixtures, the Clonoe game and the Omagh game, which we thought we should have kept up the momentum we had.”
The Rossas feel they need a big performance next Thursday in order to restore pride damaged by a heavy defeat to Errigal Ciaran in last year’s semi-final.
The scars from that damaging reversal inflicted by a ruthless Errigal side will not begin to heal until Ardboe begin to perform with authority once again on the championship stage.
“It was disappointing, especially after the results that we did get in the first two games.
“It was one of those games where we let them have a wee bit of rope and they kept taking it point by point, and it really built up.
“It’s something we’re going to have to look at this year and try and correct.”
They’ll come up against an Edendork side driven by a clutch of Tyrone stars, including goalkeeper Niall Morgan, who will operate either as sweeper or full forward, possibly both.
“Obviously, if we let Edendork, with the likes of McCurry and Morgan do that, they’ll cause a bit of damage, so it’s something we’ll have to look at and try and get sorted.”
“Edendork is going to push us very hard and it’s going to be a very tough fixture.
“They have key men down the centre, and down the sides they’re very strong as well.
“They have pushed themselves well in the championship in the last couple of years, whereas we haven’t represented ourselves well in the championship.
“We’ll want to try and correct that this year and bring that wee bit of momentum that we ended the league with into the championship.”
Ardboe’s proud history is strewn with stories of championship triumphs, including three-in-a-row in the seventies, a couple more in the eighties and the most recent in 1998.
Those levels of success have been difficult to replicate, and tradition will weigh heavily on the young shoulders of the current generation until they bring the O’Neill Cup back to the shore.
“It’s something we always remember and try to maintain that tradition,” said Devlin.
“Obviously we’re a different team and trying to apply ourselves very much to represent the club and reach the standards of the seventies, the eighties, and even into the nineties.
“We probably haven’t done that into the noughties, but we want to make ourselves hard to beat.”
