Setanta step up to Ulster IHC plate away to Derry's Ballinascreen on Saturday

With a surname like Campbell and being a native of the Crossroads in Killygordon, Ruari Campbell was always going to wield a caman from a very young age.  

His late grandfather, Eamon, was a driving force for hurling in the Finn Valley area since the late 1980s and his dad Mark and uncles Kevin and Paul were also influential figures during his childhood. 

All three have won county titles with Setanta and have also played with Donegal. And now 21-year-old Ruairi is also carrying that same banner for club and his county. 

In the past two years he has broken into the best Donegal team of all time under Mickey McCann. But right now, his only concern is pushing Setanta through the provincial ranks as the side gets ready for another tilt at Ulster. 

Setanta square up to Derry’s Ballinascreen on Saturday evening at 4.15 pm. Campbell is currently a student in Belfast -  a city he loves and he plans to become a primary school teacher after he finishes his degree in English at St Mary’s College. 

But he already has an All-Ireland Freshers B title won with Queen’s University two years ago as St Mary’s, at the time, did not have enough numbers to make up  a team. 

“Hurling was always the topic at the table in our house growing up and my first few Christmas presents were hurls. My grandad Eamon was a huge influence on all of us. 

“We did a lot of training for indoor hurling down in Killygordon when I was nine or ten and a lot of ground hurling. 

“It was a wonderful background and my grandad Eamon also took Donegal to a Rackard Cup final in 2006. And even though I was very young, about four I’d say, I have good memories of all of that and that was inspirational. 

“I remember the likes of Simon McMenamin and Michael McGee from Setanta playing that time. My dad Mark and Paul played for Setanta for years. 

“My dad is very keen on coaching and after every game, I usually have a 45-minute debrief with him! 

“It’s the same with uncle Paul so you have inspiration coming from all sides of the family.” 

Ruairi was a key part of the Setanta team that reached the All-Ireland JHC quarter-final last season only to be “robbed” by British champions Kilburn Gaels, at the death, in Carrickmore. This time out, it’s the even steeper ranks of the Ulster Intermediate grade so the challenge will be even greater. 

“There is a bit of hurt from that defeat, which will drive us on against Ballinascreen,” he said. “I will never forget that feeling we had in the changing room. 

“I think it was Barney Lafferty who spoke up amidst all the silence and told us that we needed to push for something more here next year and that we simply couldn’t look at it as the end of the road. 

“So we put the shoulder to the wheel once more this year and had a good campaign in retaining the county title. 

“It was a good campaign and we were minus Davin Flynn who is a huge loss to both club and county.” 

The big concern for Setanta is that they’ve been idle now for almost twelve weeks since that Donegal decider win over St Eunan’s back in late July. But Campbell is confident that rust can be shaken on Saturday. 

“It has been a difficult one to get around because you don’t want to overwhelm boys with challenge games as you can burn out easy enough too if the training is too high-tempo. So it’s just been about trying to find the right balance and letting boys have a break. 

“We had a few light enough sessions with skills and we spent time on the wall in between. But we aimed to pick it up as we got closer to this tie. 

“We had a break of four to five weeks and it was nice just to reset. We also had a few challenge matches with the likes of Lisbellaw, Swatragh and a game against last year’s All-Ireland junior champions, Easkey, which they won by a point last Saturday.

“I feel we’re definitely approaching full tilt now at just the right time”.  

Opponents Ballinascreen beat Eoghan Rua of Coleraine by 3-16 to 0-5 in the Derry final. And while Campbell does not know too much about Ballinascreen, he said that both his uncle Kevin as well as Niall Cleary have been tasked with that important homework in recent weeks. 

“They have been doing analysis and looking at how they set up and how we should set up in response. 

“We have tried to put that into practice over the past few weeks in those challenge games. So we’ll see how all that works out at the weekend”.