By Shaun Casey

CHAMPIONSHIP finals don’t come around every year, so Sean McDermott’s manager Mickey McMahon is hoping the club, both on and off the playing field, have enjoyed the two-week build up.

McMahon’s side head into the decider as clear outsiders. They are facing an Emyvale side that have been flying all year. Across league and championship in 2025, Emyvale have won all but one of their games, which was a draw.

The youngsters around the Sean McDermott’s panel kick-started the feel-good factor with their own success and the club has been riding on that crest of a wave ever since. Now they have to focus on bringing their own glory back home.

“We’re trying to keep a wee bit of a lid on it but you want the parish to enjoy it,” explained McMahon. “You don’t get to a championship final too often so when you get there, you enjoy it. The build up on the pitch has been good as well.

“Our u-12s, girls and boys, have won Division Two leagues this year and that was a few weeks ago so that lifted the club, our Division Six u-12s won as well so there’s been a good wee buzz around the club for the past three or four weeks.”

The sides clashed in the group stages of the competition, with two points separating them, so McMahon, who takes the team alongside coach Donal Carragher, has got first-hand experience of Emyvale’s quality.

“Once we got over Currin, Emyvale was the next thing on our minds but it’s going to be a big task,” he said.

“They’re unbeaten this year and they’re racking up big scores. Over the quarter-finals and the semi-finals they scored 4-34 in two games.

“They are the team to beat from day one, in the league or the championship but it’s a two-horse race at this stage.

“The last game we played against them, they beat us by six or seven and the big learning from that was if you make a mistake, they’re going to punish you.

“You could be in a comfortable position with the ball, and you could be attacking but if you make one error, they can hit you on the break and they can get scores from anywhere and they have a couple of really good forwards inside that will punish you.

“If you make mistakes against them, you’re going to get punished. Any turnovers, they usually get a score from it any time they come up the field so that’ll be the big thing for us, to cut out any mistakes and to make use of the ball whenever we have.”

All that being said, he still believes they have a real chance.

“We’re looking forward to it. We have Paraic McGurk the team captain and he’s one of the best players in junior, he’s a leader.

“Vice-captain Adam O’Driscoll, he’s one of the top forwards so when you have those two and a sprinkling of other senior players…we have a very young team, but we have a chance.”