Paddy Flood and St Eunan’s targeting Ulster JHC glory

For St Eunan’s manager Paddy Flood and his charges, the memory of a previous tough, provincial experience could be just the spur to greater things this year.

On Saturday, their first team takes on Omagh, St Enda's in the Ulster Junior Hurling Championship in O’Donnell Park and will be strongly fancied to advance.

Even though the Cathedral men’s Junior team are the reigning Donegal county champions, the rules state that the beaten senior county finalists can represent their county at Junior level, as county champions Setanta are up to the Intermediate grade.

Speaking this week, Flood said Eunan’s were now looking forward to making an impact in Ulster after the disappointment of a heavy defeat to Craobh Rua of south Armagh back in 2021.

“Even though we won the Junior, once we qualified for the senior final, we were going into Ulster as Setanta won the Ulster Junior title last year and are now up to the Intermediate grade.

“That is the system in place so we’ll go along with it.”

St Eunan’s have had a gap of almost 12 weeks since their last competitive action but Flood is not unduly fazed as it gave the footballers a chance to concentrate on their game and Sean McVeigh, Kevin Kealy, Brian McIntyre are key dual players for the club.

“We have the lads back together and we played a few matches against Intermediate teams like Lisbellaw, Middletown and Ballinascreen and we have no real injury concerns. Middletown beat us well but the other games were good, tight tests.

“The bottom line is that if we play at our best, we can give most teams a game. Setanta are a very good marker for Ulster and at our best we can compete with them. But in the county final we let in too many goals.”

Eunan’s only concern is their lack of competitive hurling over the past few weeks but Flood firmly believes they are ready for Saturday’s test.”

Their opponents Omagh shocked favourites Naomh Colmcille in the Tyrone final just three weeks ago so they will have a fair degree of match fitness.

“Home advantage is a huge help as two years ago we went down to Armagh and we just did not realise the challenge that we were facing.

“We were not experienced enough and hopefully we can learn from that. They had a few guys that we had not seen and kind of caught us on the hop. And they actually went on to win the Ulster title.

“In 2019 we lost to Gort na Mona by a point so our main aim this year is to get our first win and we are not looking beyond that at all”.

Flood had a look at Omagh in their recent county final and was impressed with some of their key performers.

“They shocked Naomh Colmcille and they came back from being behind. Their fitness and will to win was very impressive.

“Ciaran Lagan, who also plays for Tyrone, was outstanding while Mark Corry, Eoghan Winters and Cormac Taggart are fine performers.

“We do have a fair bit of experience as well. Conor O’Grady is having his best season ever and David Horgan has been very good too.

Daire Ó Maoileidigh has been such a stalwart for us and he just sets such a high standard and our trainer, Kevin Kelly from Derry, has been a real revelation for us.

“We have been very lucky with coaches like Tom Hennessy and Eugene Organ before.”

And the experience of the Craobh Rua will stand to Eunan’s in Flood’s view.

“It was full on championship against Craobh Rua and that is what we will be hoping to bring this year as the talent is there and it is just a matter of harnessing it.

“The lads now know what it takes and are determined to take that vital first step.”