O’Neill: Clonoe driven to excel in Ulster

By Michael McMullan

MICKEY O’Neill didn’t need to wait long to find out Clonoe were playing Cuchulainns in Saturday’s Ulster Intermediate semi-final.

The former Tyrone ‘keeper hadn’t even left the Healy Park goalmouth after their quarter-final win over Saval before discovering their semi-final opposition.

“The two umpires wfere from Cavan and very quickly told me there at the final whistle that they were playing them,” O’Neill said after his excellent display between the posts.

“It’s a team I don’t know,” he added, “so all we can do is look at them and see what happens.”

O’Neill made three excellent saves to deny a Saval team who had managed at least one goal in all but one game before facing Clonoe.

It was a first-ever win in Ulster for the O’Rahilly’s, who lost in the first round on the last three occasions they landed the O’Neill Cup.

Of the 18 Ulster intermediate titles won since Liatroim won the first in 1998, eight have been won by Tyrone clubs.

“One of the things we didn’t do, we didn’t win a game in Ulster, and we’ve now put that to rights.” O’Neill added. “It was spoken about a few times because it’s the first time we’ve done something in Ulster.

“It was something that we wanted to do. Kevin (Madden – manager) said it but, at the end of the day, it was more about [looking at] Saval.”

“It’s a massive drive,” O’Neill added, in reference to playing in Ulster. “You can see it the in changing rooms there, it’s more excitement to go and see how far we can go, so that’s a good thing.”

O’Neill, Declan McClure, Connor McAliskey, PJ Lavery and Danny McNulty all played in Clonoe’s 2013 Ulster campaign.

O’Neill, now in his 20th season of club football, was also between the posts when Clonoe were senior champions five years earlier.

He said the younger players “feed off” the leadership of the more senior members of the group.

“Rhys (Donnelly), Shane (Hughes) and those younger lads, they really want to put the work in and feed off PJ. It shows when it happens, we’re good and teams can find it hard to stop us,” O’Neill said.

Cuchulainn’s were winners over Fermanagh’s Irvinestown in a very exciting quarter-final, 2-18 to 1-18, having battled their way out of Cavan.

It was a crunch year for them after coming up short on so many occasions without being able to apply the finishing touches.

If they are to advance to the decider, the Breffni men will have to inflict a first defeat on Clonoe who have won all 20 games in league and championship thus far in 2025.

“It has been consistently good,” O’Neill said, pointing to the importance of focus. “It’s hard because there are 15 league games and every week, you have to stay fully focused.

“We wanted to get up (to senior football) as quick as possible through the league, to then only worry about the championship, instead of the play-offs.

“We’ve got a good run in the championship, played well and I think our best game in the championship was in the final (against Eglish).. We weren’t brilliant, but we were good – we dug it out and got the rub of the green at the end which helped us.”