By Michael McMullan

MANAGER Peter Murphy hopes Naomh Pádraig Uisce Chaoin can take their league form into the upcoming Intermediate Championship.

After their recent run to the All-Ireland Junior Championship final, they pushed on at the Intermediate grade.

They travel to Bundoran when the championship starts next weekend before three Inishowen derbies against Malin (H), Carndonagh (A) and Buncrana (H).

Naomh Pádraig’s goal at the start of the year was to consolidate their position in Division Two.

Caolan McColgan missed most of the season with county duty and is currently recovering from a hamstring injury sustained ahead of Donegal’s defeat to Dublin.

His cousin Cormac has gone to the US for the summer. Kevin Lynch is still struggling with a long -term foot injury.

Eunan Mullan is in Australia. Jason McCallion moved to England where he played for Warwickshire. Drew McKinney and Kevin Doherty are also out injured. They’ve had to plan without Johnny Toye for much of the season due to his Masters’ study in England.

Murphy, who won an intermediate title in Derry as a player with Claudy, said: “The ambitions for the club this year was to win four or five (league) games, consolidate ourselves in an intermediate league and give the championship a good rattle.”

Winning four of the first five games put them on course and they pushed on from there, finishing third and into a promotion play-off against St Michael’s who were lingering at the bottom of the top flight.

“It was their first ever exposure to that level of senior football,” Murphy said of his team.“St Michael’s had a couple of real seasoned players from the Donegal 2012 All-Ireland-winning team.”

After playing second fiddle in the opening quarter, Uisce Chaoin found themselves 14 points down at half-time.

“We kicked 1-15 to 2-4 in the second half against the senior team,” he added.

“The league has been really, really good and we used 33 men as well. That’s a massive plus, hopefully, going into the championship.

“Everybody got opportunities and you know what you have and what you don’t have.”

Looking ahead to their clash with Bundoran, who were relegated from Division Two, Murphy has his eyes wide open.

“They’ve been plagued with lads going to America but obviously they’ve got Jamie Brennan coming back and they could be overlooked if you were naive enough,” he said.

“Muff beat them last year by a last-kick two-pointer, to beat them by a point.”

While they are missing a number of key players, Murphy feels the club’s future is bright.

Of the team that faced St Michael’s, 10 were U21s.

He is assisted by Foreglen man Paul McLaughlin. Former Limavady player Marty Mailey looks after their conditioning.

Local men Aidan Lynch and Robin Doyle form part of the management team, the latter an All-Ireland winner with Galway in 1998 who is now well-established in the locality.

“They are a great help in pointing out the local Donegal scene. I’m really enjoying it but a good year in a league doesn’t always bode well for a good year in a championship.

“As the saying goes, leagues for playing and championships for winning, so we will see how the Bundoran game goes.”