O’Kane challenges Glenullin to match Sleacht Néill’s level

By Michael McMullan

GLENULLIN manager Michael O’Kane says Sunday’s opponents Sleacht Néill are the level his side need to get to in the long-term.

The sides look horns on Sunday evening at Find Insurance Owenbeg with a place in the Derry Senior Championship quarter-finals up for grabs.

Not only is it a derby game, but O’Kane is preparing go up against his brother-in-law Karl McKaigue in the Sleacht Néill team.

“The last time I was chatting to him, he just said he’d see me in a couple of weeks,” O’Kane joked.

Glenullin won their opening game against Loup thanks to a late Ryan McNicholl goal but were then beaten by Ballinderry who bagged a stoppage time penalty.

Entertainment has followed ‘the ‘Glen’ in their three seasons of intermediate success, a period which culminated in winning the Ulster title last season.

This year, the target was winning a Senior Championship game, something the younger cohort of players hadn’t experienced.

“The players, I know that they want to prove that they belong up there (in senior), I could just feel it from them before we played Loup,” O’Kane explained.

He doesn’t think his side have played well and points to Ballinderry getting a run on them, scoring an unanswered 1-6 late on.

“A lot of our players had never actually won a Senior Championship match, the lads in the mid-range, in the mid-twenties. They’ve been beaten in the Senior Championship games they’ve played so it was a big target for us.”

Focus

The focus since losing to Ballinderry has been getting their own house in order but O’Kane is fully aware of the challenge they face. He points to Sleacht Néill being one of the top teams in the county since 2014.

“Since 2014, they’ve been in the top two or three teams in Derry and the top 10 teams in Ulster for the last 12 or 13 years,” he said.

“We’re just trying to get to that level. People might see us being fanciful but we think we’re trying to build a team that can compete at that level.

“We just want to be here and not bounce about between senior and intermediate, the way we’ve done over the past eight or nine years. We want to make sure that we’re here and we’re here to stay.”

Despite the perception of Glenullin being an old team, O’Kane said they been blooding teenagers in recent years.

“We want to expose them to that highest level of football we can,” he said.

“I know people think we’re an older team because we have a couple of old players but there’s nobody plays younger players like us.

“We have players at 17, 18 and 19, all playing regularly for a senior team which a lot of teams don’t.

“There’s going to be mistakes made but we feel that we belong up there now and we want to try and compete with those teams at the top level.”