ULSTER MINOR CHAMPIONSHIP SEMI-FINAL

Armagh v Donegal

Friday, Healy Park, 7.30pm

By Niall Gartland

PICKING a starting team is difficult enough at the best of times, but it’s an especially unenviable task for Armagh minor boss Brendan Hughes.

Starring cameo performances from the likes of Ethan McKenna and Bernard Cassidy helped push the team over the line in a hugely satisfying victory over All-Ireland holders Derry in their Ulster Championship quarter-final clash.

Strength-in-depth certainly isn’t an issue anyway, so Hughes and the rest of his management team will have their thinking caps on as they prepare for Friday evening’s semi-final clash against Donegal.

Asked if he was concerned when they trailed 0-8 to 0-5 at the short whistle, Hughes said:

“We weren’t really worried, we have a big squad of 40, and we feel everybody’s on the squad on merit and we knew there was quality on the bench, and quality even among the players who didn’t make the 24 for the match.

“Some of those players were going particularly well in training and were quite unlucky not to make the first 15. When they came on we’d confidence they could make an impact.”

It wasn’t the only reason why the wheels didn’t come off when the Oak Leafers, who won the All-Ireland minor title literally a week prior, albeit with only a handful of those players still available, were in the ascendancy. Hughes says the Armagh players showed a great deal of maturity to stick to the task at hand.

“They weren’t too worried about playing the All-Ireland champions because that team were virtually all overage.

“The way we saw it was that we were playing Derry. They obviously have had a very good record at underage in minor, but our lads were very clear about the process.

The other thing is that we played against the breeze in the first half so in the second we had the advantage in that respect. We weren’t out of the game by any means. We knew exactly what we had to do and the subs made the impact that helped get us over the line.”

Hughes knows it won’t be easy to get the better of a Donegal side that have shown their ability at both ends of the pitch across both their matches to date.

“They’ve had the benefit of a preliminary round game sp they’ve had two games to develop their method of play, they put up a very big score against Antrim so that shows they’ve got a high scoring forward line.

“Then against Monaghan they were down to 14 men for a large part of the game yet they only conceded 10 points. That shows they’re very strong defensively as well so I’m fairly sure they’ll be formidable opponents.”

A lot of his players actually lined out for the county soccer team at u-15 level, but they’ve thrown their lot in with the Armagh team and enjoy the strong backing of local supporters.

“There was a positive reaction from the start in terms of lads showing up at trials,” says Hughes.

“We’ve tried to work with the clubs and with the people, they’ve played a lot of club football through the whole process

“The Armagh public has been very supportive, it’s important for Armagh that the minor team does well and makes progress. It’s obviously part of the whole process of providing players for the senior team. If they can have a positive experience during their time on the minors, and be used to winning, they’ll be better players going forward.”