McConville praises “superstar” Murnin

By Shaun Casey

ST Paul’s manager Shane McConville has heaped praise on “superstar” Andrew Murnin for the Armagh attacker’s role in helping his club get back to an Intermediate Championship final for the fifth time in six years.

St Paul’s are yet to end their 11-year wait for championship gold, having lost recent finals to Clan na Gael, Shane O’Neill’s, Cullyhanna and most recently Carrickcruppen, but they’ll get another shot at it when they come up against Sarsfields on Sunday week.

Murnin fisted over the crucial winning score last weekend when the Lurgan men edged out Shane O’Neill’s by the minimum of margins. Murnin top-scored with 1-6 and also set up their first-half goal, scored by Niall McParland.

“He just plays inside this team,” said McConville when asked about Murnin’s influence. “When you hand him a jersey, he just does exactly what you ask him to do. There are no airs or graces, he’s just a superstar to be working with at club level.

“I think he has only missed one training session since Armagh were put out of the All-Ireland, that’s just incredible. He goes about his business, and he takes no more credit than what he deserves, and he’ll move on to the final as calm as ever.”

McConville was also the manager when St Paul’s got over the line in 2014 and he’s hoping history can repeat itself now that he’s back on the sideline. McConville also guided Maghery to their maiden Senior Championship crown back in 2016.

“I was talking to a fella one day, he’s actually a 90-year-old man, and he was chatting to me about that. He told me St Paul’s are right and good at getting to the final but we’re just not that good at winning them.

“He’s probably one hundred percent right but we were beaten in a couple of finals, Shane’s beat us in a last-gasp one, Carrickcruppen last year was very hard to take as well.

“The other two, Cullyhanna went ahead and did brilliantly and won an All-Ireland, Clan na Gael were ready for senior football and those two games were probably two teams that weren’t intermediate really, they were better than intermediate.

“We’re not afraid of the final, we’ll be preparing ourselves for it and I don’t think there’s much between the two teams. We’ll be confident going into the game, as will Sarsfields.”