By Michael McMullan

CREGGAN will take a different approach to their championship preparations this season.

The recently crowned league champions are grouped with St John’s, All Saints and St Paul’s in their group with two set to advance to the knock-out stages.

The difference this year is the absence of league semi-finals and with the championship commencing a week earlier, Antrim clubs have a six-week gap to manage.

“It is new territory in terms of how you manage that,” said joint manager Odhrán McLarnon, who oversees the team alongside Joe Cassidy.

“It’s an opportunity to get a bit of training done. Whenever you go from league game to league game, there’s probably very little training in that period. Your main focus is on your match and what you can get out of that.”

There were periods during the league with football games both Sunday and mid-week, which made it tough on dual clubs. It also left management teams having to juggle their training plans.

“The way we approached the league was that your league match was your main session together that week,” McLarnon points out.

“You were learning something from every game. It’s a bit different now. You obviously are conscious that games are good as well, so there’s an element of getting some training done.”

McLarnon and Cassidy are joined in the management team by coach Antóin Moran and Eoin McNicholl who looks after the conditioning.

“We have a few great club men involved there,” McLarnon added. “John Anthony Quinn, Cathal Shannon and Olcan McAteer are in there. We have Peter Graham there doing the analysis for us.”

Pinnacle

Creggan last won the McNamee Cup in 2021 having lost two county finals in the years before that as they built towards the pinnacle.

“At the start of this year, it was more about getting consistency and focusing on ourselves,” McLarnon said of Creggan’s 2026 focus.

“That ended up in us winning the league. Any sort of title in terms of our club is great – it’s only our sixth in our history of a club so that’s obviously a nice thing for the club to experience.”

Their focus was always on the next game, something their congested fixtures’ programme demanded.

“We had used over 30 players in the league,” he added. “There were some fellas that got their fourth league medal (since 2018) out of the six that we have in the club’s history

“There were other fellas picking up their first there. The league normally has 15 games in that sort of period of time.

“You have people picking up knocks here and there. We weren’t risking anybody and that was an opportunity to use your squad as well.”

The championship will now be the focus as training begins to taper towards the business end of the season.

Dunloy are the reigning champions with Cargin also still very much in the frame after their glut of senior success in recent seasons.

Creggan’s fourth league title in eight seasons represents a level of consistency that will have them in the conversation for a senior title.

“The club has been developing over the years and I suppose that’s something that people will look back on in time,” McLarnon added.

“Every club has a period where they have a good group and it’s about making the most of that whenever you do have it.”