Another productive league campaign for Ramor

By Niall Gartland

RAMOR are in pole position to finish top of the pack in the Division One, and whatever happens in their final-round fixture against bottom-placed Lacken this Friday night, they have a league semi-final in the pipeline.

Jude and Pat McNabb are in their second season in charge of the Virgina-based team and they’re building upon the progress that was made in year one, where they claimed Division One honours before marching on to the Senior Championship final, where they lost to Crosserlough in a game defined by the stormy conditions.

If they overcome Lacken as expected, they’ll participate in a first v fourth semi-final clash. Alternatively they’ll finish second and take on third-placed Crosserlough. Either way it’s been another hugely productive league campaign, according to their joint-manager Pat McNabb, a native of Trillick in Tyrone.

“We’re going rightly, we’re a point behind Gowna who have played all their games and we have one game left, against Lacken who are propping up the table. All being well we’ll win that one and that’ll put us top.

“The league’s been good to us – it’s allowed us to really experiment with five young lads in particular, who have been given considerable game-time. They’ve really developed as footballers and made a massive contribution to the team so that’s been great.”

The progress of their greenhorns has helped compensate for the unavailability of their four Cavan senior intercounty players (Sean McEvoy, Liam Brady, Brian O’Connell and Matthew Smyth), who will now return to club commitments following their preliminary quarter-final defeat to Kerry last Saturday.

“We were down those four lads and when we lost Ben Smith from last year’s team, he went travelling to Australia. As I say, we’re really happy five or six of the younger lads have come in and really put their hands up. There’s a number of them who would really be pushing for championship starting positions.”

Ramor’s focus will soon switch to their upcoming senior championship campaign, which will commence with a round-one group stage clash against Mullahoran.

“Once the Cavan lads come back, you know the championship is just around the corner and you’re trying to organise a couple of challenge matches.

“The draw has been made for the first round and we’ve got Mullahoran, they’ll not be easy – they’re a tricky, stubborn outfit. We beat them in the league a fortnight ago, we were six down with five minutes to go and we edged them by a point. Once we get the Lacken game out of the way, we’ll be picking things up in terms of getting ourselves ready for the championship.”