By Shaun Casey

BRYANSFORD have drawn the short straw in the opening round of the Down Senior Championship as they take on seven-in-a-row chasers Kilcoo, but Jim Magorrian says it’s a challenge his side are looking forward to.

They were disappointed to miss out on promotion to the top tier during the league, finishing third in Division Two for the second season in a row, but now it’s all about championship and they’ve turned their focus towards the business end of the season.

Magorrian’s men reached the last eight of the competition last year, where they crashed out against Glenn, and are feeling optimistic about the campaign ahead and are looking forward to testing themselves against “one of the best club teams in Ireland”.

“One of our main priorities was to get back to Division One and that hasn’t worked out for us but was the league finishes, or even towards the end of the league, you’re slowly but surely honing in on the championship preparations,” said Magorrian.

“Championship is what you play football for and obviously for us in Division Two; to get the opportunity to play the Division One champions and in my opinion one of the best club teams in Ireland, it’s a brilliant challenge for us.

“The fact it’s our local rivals as well just adds that bit of extra spice to it. Kilcoo keep blooding more and more young players, they have the best management teams, the best structures, so it’s no surprise that they are where they are.

“The boys are really looking forward to it. We’ve got a mix of older players and younger guys that are into their first or second years of playing championship football so it’s an exciting time.”

Bryansford do have a number of injury concerns going into the championship and will start their campaign without some key men. They were forced to play throughout the league minus a number of star names as well.

“I hate using injuries as an excuse, but we’ve been unfortunate to be hampered with injuries all year. Six of our forwards that played championship last year weren’t available at the start of the league and that meant we were playing catch up a wee bit and lost our first few games.

“For the championship, we’ll be missing three or four of our starting forwards and for us to compete with Kilcoo and potentially try to cause an upset, you need a full deck so that is unfortunate.

“We have Ryan O’Higgins who is our captain, we have Conor Maginn, who hasn’t really played all year, and then one of our county u-20s, my lad Ryan Magorrian, he’s picked up a knee injury in the last three or four weeks as well.

“We’re looking at three forwards there that would cause some threat and get the scoreboard ticking for us that won’t be available but at the same time that does give opportunities to other guys.”