By Niall Gartland

ULSTER MINOR CHAMPIONSHIP SEMI-FINAL

Tyrone v Derry

Saturday, Athletic Grounds, 1pm

DOES tradition carry much weight at minor level? We’ll have you know that Tyrone sit on top of the all-time leaderboard with 23 Ulster Minor Championship titles to their name, while Derry are in second position with 14 titles, so these counties certainly aren’t lacking in pedigree at this level.

That probably won’t mean a lot to their respective minor teams who are set to cross paths in Saturday’s Ulster Championship semi-final at the Athletic Grounds.

Both teams have had to be massively patient in the last year following a string of delays – the tournament had initially been scheduled to go ahead last May, but that was scuppered by Covid and they had to play their respective quarter-finals just a week before Christmas. They probably didn’t envision another six-month wait for their next match, but here we are.

That makes this an exceptionally difficult match to preview, and we assume that the respective management teams aren’t quite sure what to expect either.

The Oak Leafers qualified for the semi-finals with victory over Armagh by 1-7 to 0-8 with team captain Matthew Downey stealing the show. He delivered an inspirational display, kicking five points, so it’s fair to say that Tyrone will have marked his card. Also worth noting is that the game’s decisive score on a blustery day was a goal from Dan Higgins.

They’ve a number of injuries concerns heading into this weekend’s game against Tyrone with would-be starters Sean Deehan and Raymond Dillon likely to miss out. Callum Downey and Peter McCullagh are also injury doubts, but Darragh Wade is back training after missing the Armagh game with injury.

They have considerable pedigree as they won the respective provincial competitions at u-15 and u-16 level (the Brian McLernon and Buncrana Cups), and their manager Marty Boyle was proud of how they coped with the favourites tag against Armagh, saying: “I have just told them I am beaming with pride for them. In the white heat of championship, when the pressure is on and you are going into a game where everyone is making you favourites, it is easy to crumble but those boys didn’t crumble. That’s the sign of those men, and I’ll use the term ‘men’.”

He also said they were looking forward to their game against Tyrone in a ‘fortnight’, but that obviously didn’t work out as planned.

The Red Hands are under the tutelage of Collie Holmes, He’s very well-renowned in the county – he trained the Dungannon team which won last year’s Tyrone Senior Championship, and is also part of the senior intercounty set-up. He also led the 2019 u-17 team to the Ulster final, but they lost narrowly to Monaghan.

This current team qualified for the Ulster semi-final with a one-point victory over Donegal.

Ruairi Canavan was the main man that day, but there are some question marks over his fitness heading into this weekend’s contest. If he’s available, they’ll have a great shout, but otherwise it could be Derry who take the spoils.