Crossmaglen boss Lennon expects a ‘cracker’ in final

By Shaun Casey

CROSSMAGLEN only know how to play football one way and that’s on the front foot, while Killeavy have shown they like to attack as well, and that points to a “cracker” on Sunday, according to manager Shane Lennon.

The pair face off in the Armagh Senior final with the Gerry Fagan Cup handed out to whoever comes out on top. The Rangers haven’t got their hands on the title for three years.

This is Lennon’s second season in charge, and they fell at the semi-final hurdle last year, but pulled off the comeback of all comebacks nearly a fortnight ago to snatch a one-point win over Clann Éireann on the last day out.

“It could be a cracker, obviously they have plenty of firepower but when you’re at this stage of the championship, everyone has firepower up front,” said the former Louth full forward.

“They had the game over at half time in their semi-final (vs Dromintee). Once the second goal went in it was over. We’ll have to nail down their key targets and we’ll all row in.”

The Rangers stumbled their way through the group stages, beating Tullysaran on the first day out before losing back-to-back encounter against near neighbours Dromintee and 2025 county champions Madden.

At half time of that clash with Madden, Rian O’Neill made his first appearance of the campaign while Oisin O’Neill returned as well, and they’ve hit top form ever since.

Once the championship reached the knockout stages, Crossmaglen have really found their grove and have racked up 7-71 across three games, beating Clan na Gael, Culloville and Clann Éireann to reach the final.

“The league was frustrating, but we were missing so many bodies with Armagh U20s and seniors and there’s pluses and negatives with having so many involved with the county teams,” Lennon continued.

“We threw a couple of questions to the squad after the Tullysaran game, obviously Oisin (O’Neill) had his wedding in the middle of the group stages and we’d loads of distractions.

“At half time in Madden, we knew that we had got a bounce and we were going in the right direction.”

Reflecting on their victory over Clann Éireann two weeks ago, where they came from 14-points down, Lennon commented, “We left the changing room at half time and said we’d have no regrets.

“We weren’t happy with our first half performance, but we knew that it wasn’t good enough for the Crossmaglen jersey and being honest, our younger lads probably managed the game better in the second half than our more experienced lads.

“But we had a big second half from our leaders, they stood up to it. Keelan Mac (McEntee), he could get the ball to the ground and that gave us a chance to get the second ball and we have shooters all over the field who were able to take advantage.”