By Shaun Casey

AFTER back-to-back victories in the Intermediate Championship, An Riocht are expecting a step up in class when they take on Saval in the quarter-finals this weekend, says joint-manager Kevin Franklin.

Franklin, who takes the team alongside Paul Shields, say Saval are the strongest of the four teams An Riocht could have faced. The two clubs clashed twice in Division Two of the league, with Saval coming out on top both times.

The Kingdom will be hoping to make it third time lucky, and they have been in decent form throughout the championship, recording wins over Teconnaught and Newry Shamrocks to qualify for the final eight.

“We’ve ran up good scores so far,” said Franklin. “The first game against Teconnaught, we lost a man before half time, and we ended up going to extra-time, so we played the guts of 40 or 50 minutes with a man down.

“We scraped through that, and it was a tough encounter. We ran up a good score against Shamrocks as well, but we have to take into account that one of those teams is in Division Four and the other is very close to it, they’d be the lower ranked teams in the competition.

“This is our first time played a Division Two team (in the championship) and it’ll be a jump up in class playing Saval. We’re aware of that and the players know that too. We played them twice in the league and they beat us convincingly both times so it’s a tough ask.”

It’s all about knockout football now for An Riocht, who last won the title back in 2021. Saval have been crowned champions in recent years as well, going all the way in 2022 and they hold the “marquee forward in the Intermediate Championship” in their ranks.

“There’s no safety net of a backdoor anymore and we have a tough draw with Saval, it was probably the one you didn’t want,” Franklin added. “They’re a very strong team and they’re coming to the boil at the right time of year.

“They have Pat Havern, he’s probably the marquee forward in the Intermediate Championship and he’s ably supported by another four or five other guys, they have a lot of firepower up front.

“They have the likes of Kealan Rice and Daniel McCarthy, Dan McKernan, they’re all god, quality players who can do a huge amount of damage. They won the championship three or four years ago and had a couple of games in Ulster as well.

“They have been inconsistent this year, at one stage in the league they were in danger of being relegated but they finished with a very strong run. They lost their first round and went through the backdoor, which was a bit of a surprise.

“They hammered Bosco two weeks ago and won last week so they’ll fancy their chances and they’re one of the favourites to win the whole thing. No matter who you get in the quarter-finals it’s going to be tough, but Saval is probably the one you’d have wanted the least.”