By Niall Gartland

IT wasn’t that long ago really that Eoghan Rua camogs were living it up and competing for All-Ireland titles at senior level, but they’re still relishing the prospect of Sunday’s Ulster Junior ‘A’ decider against Loughgiel.

Grainne Holmes (nee McGoldrick) and Grace McMullan starred for Eoghan Rua during their glory years (they won All-Ireland Intermediate titles in 2011 and 2012) and they’re still going strong all these years later.

There’s others as well – Grainne’s sister Meabh, Megan Kerr (who actually plays ladies football for Trillick in county Tyrone) and Maria Mooney, sister of Derry footballer Ruairi.

That said, they’ve definitely gone through a barren spell since 2015, so their manager Brendan McLernon is glad that things have improved, and they qualified for the Ulster Junior ‘A’ final with a hugely convincing win over Mayobridge last weekend.

McLernon said: “It’s a bit biblical, we had seven years of plenty and then seven years of drought. In a way we were Sleacht Néill’s predecessors, but we couldn’t get to an All-Ireland Senior final. You have to say that Sleacht Néill’s achievements have been incredible.

“It was a cyclical situation. We’d a really good squad for a number of years and then as the squad got older, girls got married and had children, girls went to university, and Maria Mooney actually went to live in Spain for a while. Now we have a lot of girls back again – Maria was Player of the Match in the county final. We even have a girl living in Dublin and the pandemic was useful in that sense as she spent a lot of time working from home in Portstewart.”

Even though things have improved, McLernon, who is from Rasharkin originally, says that the club are still dealing with a relatively small pick.

“We’ve a very small squad. I looked up Laragh, who we played in the first round of Ulster. I saw a picture of them in the Anglo Celt newspaper of them winning the Cavan title and in the team photograph there were 32 players. When we played them we had 22 players on the teamsheet.

“We don’t have a big squad. We’re hoping to make the most of things this year because we could have difficulties next year.”

While many of these players have lined out in an All-Ireland Senior club semi-final, McLernon says that doesn’t make the prospect of winning a Junior title any less appetising.

“They’re a really good group of girls and when we won the Derry Intermediate title, it was the first thing we won in seven years. Believe you me we appreciated it and we’re determined to make the best of things.”