LAST Halloween, St Louis', Ballymena won their first Danske Bank Mageean Cup title in 27 seasons with a comfortable win over St Mary’s, Belfast at the Queen’s Arena.
The pair will not share finals’ evening this year, as they are on a collision course to meet in the semi-finals following the league stages of the 54th running of the Mageean. However, the holders will have a difficult quarter-final to negotiate before then. They face An Dún this week and that will test them.
St Louis' lost a fair chunk of last year’s team, but looked pretty good in their opening match against St Patrick’s, Maghera, when they put up 3-22 and conceded 0-14. However on Friday, they came unstuck against St Killian’s, Garron Tower and lost by 5-9 to 0-15, with their defence looking less than impenetrable. However, players such as Dunloy’s Ryan McGarry, Sean Elliott and Conal Doherty-Cunning, along with Paddy Graffin and Conor Ferris, will make them difficult enough for An Dún's development team.
An Dún, finalists on two occasions in the past four years, have still to field at full strength, but were competitive enough in each of their games to date - a win over Knock and defeats to Cross & Passion, Ballycastle and competition favourites St Mary’s, Belfast.
Four players from Liatroim Fontenoys were involved in both the minor football and hurling finals last week in Down while, last Friday, they were also missing players from St Patrick’s, Downpatrick. One of the latter, Tim Prentor, along with Ronan Costelloe from Aquinas and Billy Campbell from St Colman’s, Newry, has shown up well and, with the addition of the McCrickard cousins, there might well be a shock exit in store for the holders.
The winners have to face a St Mary’s, Belfast side that has taken the honours at every age-level to date and completed their three-match league programme with plenty to spare. Players such as Nathan Gibson, Dominic McEnhill, Colm McLarnon, CJ McKenna, Shea Shannon and Tiarnán Murphy all featured a year ago and are determined to put the disappointment of last Halloween behind them to lift the cup.
The other half of the draw looks very interesting indeed. St Patrick’s, Maghera face Cross & Passion, Ballycastle, with the winner taking on St Killian’s, Garron Tower in the semi-final. All three are usually competitive at this level. Ballycastle, winners of the All-Ireland two seasons ago, have only captain Conor Boyd remaining from the team that started the final in Thurles in April of last year. Boyd was centre half-back for the county minors this year and Conor McHugh and Scott Walsh were on that panel as well. Overall however, they are a young squad, with 15-year-old Ryan Hill the team’s top-scorer.
Maghera, at this point in the competition, are normally formidable opponents. Convincing winners of last April’s Foresters’ Cup, they showed glimpses of what they were capable of during a 2-14 each draw with St Killian’s, but were short the Swatragh contingent when they lost to St Louis'. It will be interesting to see how strong they are in the knock-out stages, with Odhrán McKeever and Dunloy’s Cathair McGuigan part of an imposing half-back line and score-takers such as Richie Mullan and Ruairí Rafferty keeping the score-board ticking over.
St Killian’s have been there or thereabouts at this age-group, losing to St Mary’s in the MacNamee and Foresters’ Cup finals along the way. There is a decent core to the team in Cushendall’s Liam Gillan, Conal McAteer and Ronan McCambridge, Shane O’Connor from Glenarriffe, Daniel Black (Glenarm) and the Morgan brothers from Cushendun. However, they will have a tough opponent in the semi-final, whether it’s Cross & Passion or Maghera that makes it through.
The quarter-finals are due for this week and the semi-finals at the end of next week, building up to the final back at Queen’s Arena on Wednesday, October 26.
