Quarter-final play-off St Mary’s, Magherafelt v St Patrick’s, Cavan (today, 7pm, Kingspan Breffni Park)
THE Danske Bank MacRory Cup holders St Patrick’s, Cavan weren’t far off an automatic quarter-final spot for finishing third in their league section, but it does mean they have “home” advantage in today’s quarter-final play-off against St Mary’s Magherafelt, who finished bottom of their section.
Cavan played out two draws (with the two CBS sides of Omagh and Abbey) and won two games comfortably (against Bessbrook and St Ronan’s) but lost by four points to a St Colman’s side that impressed as they negotiated the league.
That was not a bad return for Fr Kevin Fay and his charges, considering that quite a large number of last year’s winning team have moved on to higher education.
They still have some penetrating forward power, however, notably in Thomas Edward Donohue, who fired in the crucial two goals against the Academy last St Patrick’s Day.
Interestingly, Dungannon, winners of the MacCormack Cup at the end of November, await the winners of this tie and that will provide a stern obstacle.
Stephen and Conor Smith and Paul Leddy will all trouble the Magherafelt defence, while the Cavan defence, maybe not as robust as the winning one last season, has been pretty solid to date.
Kevin Brady’s Magherafelt team frustrated through the league after a narrow win over St Patrick’s, Armagh in their opening fixture.
In some games they looked off the pace, while in others they played very well, but simply could not hit scores.
The news from recent challenge games is that they are doing better up front, but there is still the question over whether or not they can seal the deal in a knock-out game, in all likelihood against a defence that will be baulked up somewhat with wing-forwards dropping back.
Goalie Ben McKinless (from long-range frees) and midfielder David McErlean have supplied a fair percentage of their scores. These two will deliver scores again tonight, and the expected return of Guiseppe Lupari from a hamstring problem will be a boost. But there will need to be a big heave from others if the apple-cart is to be overturned.
Cavan should have enough to see them through to what in all likelihood will be the show-piece game of the quarter-finals.
Quarter-final play-off St Macartan’s, Monaghan v St Ronan’s, Lurgan (tonight, 7pm, Emyvale)
These two sides were basement teams in the Danske Bank MacRory Cup last season. It took a very late goal for Monaghan to edge a play-off game between them.
This year, the new St Ronan’s beat Abbey CBS to take a brace of league points early in October, but they have still struggled at the bottom end of their table.
Things have looked a lot more promising for St Macartan’s, however. The Sem of course won their first Rannafast Cup title for some time 12 months ago – and made it back to the final last term.
That winning mentality has filtered through into the MacRory group and they won two tight enough games, drew with Armagh and lost narrowly to the Academy.
The only game in which they seemed off the pace was against Maghera, where the Derry side got in for five goals.
Francis Hughes, Cian Hand, Conor Lynch, Conor Leonard, Padraig Finnan and Dean McGuigan are players that have all shown up well in October and November.
But St Macartan’s are still a relatively young squad, hoping that they can follow the template of the Cavan winning Rannafast group of 2012. That squad reached the MacRory semi-finals the following season and learned enough to follow on for a breakthrough title.
St Ronan’s are also trying to lay down a marker in this the first full year of the Lurgan amalgamation – and making it through to a quarter-final would be an achievement.
They also did quite well in reaching the Rannafast Cup semi-finals, where they went down to two early goals from St Macartan’s. The MacRory management had already been integrating three or four of these younger players into the league games.
Eunan Walsh and the McConville cousins – Conor and Aidan– are the main source of scores in the team – but they are still not accumulating enough in any of their games.
The Sem is a little further along the road in terms of experience and, after a close enough game, they should be preparing to face a strong St Colman’s team after tonight’s encounter.
