Aghabog will provide ‘formidable’ opposition says Currin manager

NO team has scored more in the Monaghan Junior Championship than Aghabog and that provides the perfect insight into what Currin and their manager Raymond Johnston face into this weekend.

Both clubs are eyeing up a spot in the semi-final of the competition and for the loser on Saturday afternoon, their season will be over. Johnston is well aware of the task that his team have ahead of them.

Aghabog rattled off an eye-catching 6-19 in their most recent outing, a 22-point victory over Rockcorry, to pick up their second victory of the campaign.

“Over the course of their championship they have scored 9-62 and they’re definitely a team that has plenty of energy, plenty of pace, they really work hard for each other, and they have plenty of threats from all over the field,” said Johnston.

“They had 13 different scorers the last day and they’re scoring heavily and getting goals. They’ve got nine in four championship games, so they are a formidable outfit that we have to be wary of.

“They have a lot of good, scoring, natural forwards that are nippy and agile and they’re well fit to cause any team problems, so we have our work cut out for us in that regard.”

Of Currin’s championship form to date, they have won two and lost two of their four group stage matches and Johnston has been pleased with their performances to date, even in their back-to-back defeats.

Currin lost out to both Killeevan and Emyvale, by two and one points respectively, either side of victories over Sean McDermott’s and Scotstown, which saw them finish in second place in Group One.

“We started off our campaign against Sean McDermott’s and that’s a local rivalry and getting over them was a great result because we were 5-1 down at one stage and came back to be a point up at half time,” added the former Fermanagh player and coach.

“It was nearly like a two-point shootout in the second half. Sean’s would go up and get a two-pointer and then we’d come back and get one, it was actually a two-pointer that got us the win in the last couple of minutes.

“Against Killeevan we were beat by a couple of points, but we missed chances that day and that came back to bite us in the end. We played Emyvale then, many people’s favourites for the championship this year.

“We played very well, particularly in the second half for a good 20 or 25 minutes, we definitely should have got something out of the game. We had a number of chances that we failed to capitalize on.

“That gave us the platform to build on for our last game against Scotstown. We controlled the game and came out five-point winners on that occasion, so it’s been a good enough campaign so far, but the league counts for nothing if we don’t get a result on Saturday.”