Injured McConville impressed with St Peter’s youths

By Shaun Casey

NIALL McConville is one of the more experienced heads in a St Peter’s squad that has been rejuvenated over the past few seasons with the introduction of some quality young players.

Conal Wilson was the man of the match in the Armagh Intermediate Championship final where they beat Keady by a single point. Oisin Haughey kicked the winning score. They were both club minors this past year.

Conan Moore finished the championship campaign as overall joint top scorer. Callum McKerr and Harry Fearon have represented Armagh at various levels in recent seasons.

McConville, who missed out on the final having torn his ACL in the semi-final win over Pearse Óg, has been blown away by the newbies.

“There’s that particular batch that has come through,” he said. “The likes of Callum, Conal, Harry and Oisin but Fionbarr (McKee) and Conan have been real leaders on the team as well.

“The likes of Barry Creaney and Paddy McGibbon probably had a lot of years trying to fight to get into the team. When these young boys came through and they set the level, I think it’s really pushed that middle bracket on as well.

“There has been a good mix this year. It’s some lift for a team when you get players through of that quality and they’re just great lads.

“They love training, they can’t wait to attack Ulster now. They just love football and I think that gives everyone else energy.”

The Lurgan club take on Cavan champions Butlersbridge on Saturday evening at Kingspan Breffni Park, a curtain raiser to the clash of Gowna and Crossmaglen.

It’s new territory for a lot of the St Peter’s crop, although McConville was a member of the last team to step into Ulster back in 2018, when they lost out to Tattyreagh of Tyrone by the minimum of margins.

“There is that initial period of gathering everyone up after the couple of days celebrating but we’ve had a bit of a longer gap (three weeks since the county final),” McConville continued.

“We played Tattyreagh the last time after maybe 12 days or something and it was hard to get everyone’s minds back on it again.”

St Peter’s will be more focused this time around. They went all the way to the quarter-finals of the Senior Championship last season, meaning they went into the intermediate campaign as favourites to collect the Atty Hearty Cup.

“Last year’s since run maybe gave us an indication that if we go at this right, we could be in a game of the magnitude. We enjoyed our couple of days, but we’re back at it now.

“I hope everyone can go and play with freedom and sees this as an extension of the final. I know people talk about bonus territory, but you want to attack these game when you get a chance because it’s no guarantee we’ll ever be here again.

“Butlersbridge are quality opposition, we’ve watched them in a few games, and they have a lot of fires that we need to put out but our boys are looking forward to it.”