By Michael McMullan

ROSSA manager Hugh McGettigan points to their heavy league defeat to Sunday’s opponents Creggan as a considerable mountain to climb.

The sides meet in Hannahstown with a place in the last four of the Antrim Senior Championship up for grabs.

A goal from Ethan Carey-Small helped Creggan to a 1-14 to 0-0 lead at Rossa Park in a comfortable win.

It was a Rossa team without their county contingent with Creggan going on to take the league title.

“They beat is in the league 21 points, so we’ve got a long way to go before we get up to that level,” McGettigan said of their May clash.

“Creggan went on and won the league. They’re an impressive outfit and Joe (Cassidy, manager) has an impressive group of players.

“They got a couple of players back, like Liam Quinn who is back for them. They beat Ballymena in the league final and again in the championship. That’s pretty impressive.”

With their county players out of the equation for most of the year and balancing the weeks between football and hurling, it left Rossa with a difficult league campaign.

“The way the league works,” McGettigan said, “you just have to play away and do your best. You don’t get too excited with it.”

Wins over Aldergrove and All Saints ensured they stayed away from the relegation trap door ahead of the championship.

“The players get a lot of matches in Antrim,” he added. “People criticise a lot of things, but boy, do they get a lot of matches.”

On top of their 15 league games, the dual players were in full flow on the way to the hurling league title.

“They have to go to the well a lot of times during it,” McGettigan added. “Winning the hurling league was tremendous because it was the first time we won that in over 30 years.”

With Gerard Walsh back in the fold and with goalkeeper Michael Byrne and leading forward Dominic McEnhill also returning from county duty, it strengthened the Rossa hand.

After a comfortable win over Aldergrove in the championship opener, Rossa fell to last year’s beaten finalists Portglenone.

“We’re disappointed by that loss, I thought we played well that day,” he added. “We probably didn’t play as well against Glenravel. The conditions were terrible.

“We were poor for a large part of it, but the last ten minutes we managed to get over the line.

“We had a good first 20 minutes and a good last 10 minutes. In between, we were middling enough.”

McGettigan takes another peek at the Portglenone game. Trailing 0-8 to 0-6 at the break, Rossa were hit for Sean Byrne’s goal before Michael Hagan added a second goal late on.

“We had a good 20 minutes against but didn’t get in front of them,” he added.

“I think if we had got in front of them, we might have asked a few questions.

“Now we’re playing against the league champions. We need to have a lot going for us.”