By Niall McCoy

JOB done in the league, now it’s time to park it – temporarily at least – for Alan O’Neill and the Killanny footballers.

The Geraldine’s achieved perfection when it came to results in Group One of the Intermediate League with Sunday’s 5-7 to 1-12 win over Aughnamullen making it four wins from four.

The side will now play a semi-final against Corduff or Doohamlet, who meet this Sunday, but with that last-four encounter not scheduled until post-championship, attention now turns to the main competition.

“We’re delighted with how the league has been for us so far,” said O’Neill, now in his third year with the team.

“We’ve four wins from four, albeit teams were playing without their county players and we have nobody on the county panel, so that has to be taken into consideration.

“We’ve been putting up fair scores and we’re into a semi-final now later in the year, and that’s something for us to look forward to.

“We have to park it now and prepare for the Intermediate Championship group matches.”

A favourable draw is a bit of an oxymoron when it comes to the Oriel county’s second-tier competition, but O’Neill feels that his side can still feel a touch unfortunate to be in such a demanding group.

“The group stage of the championship is looking very difficult,” he said.

“You have Donaghmoyne coming down from senior and Emyvale who beat us last year.

“We played Aughnamullen there at the weekend and we were fortunate enough to beat them. A few freakish goals put a bit of a gloss on the scoreline for us.

“Then Eire Og are in that group there as well so it’s a really tough group and we have a few weeks now to get ready for it.”

O’Neill wasn’t lying when he said that there were fortunate to win in Aughnamullen as they trailed by three points seven minutes into the second half. They would hit five goals from there though to earn the spoils that saw them top the group.

That burst left them with a scoring average of 22.25 points per game over the league group stage, and O’Neill believes the addition of former Crossmaglen All-Ireland winner Miceal Moley to his backroom team has paid off.

“Miceal has come in and worked well with the forwards, and that has shown,” he said.

“That was one of the things we are hoping to do this season, get the scores up.

“The boys have matured a bit. They’re a couple of years older and they’re showing a bit more composure.

“It’s something we have probably worked at a lot in training and it’s showing so far, but championship can be a different animal so we’ll need to get even better.”