By Niall Gartland

THE Lisbellaw hurlers have had a fine season but manager David Teague recognises that only a really strong performance will suffice to overcome Castleblayney in Sunday’s Ulster Intermediate Hurling Championship semi-final at Ballyconnell.

An excellent showing in the Armagh and Tyrone leagues was followed up by a provincial first-round win over Swatragh, so there’s a quiet confidence that the Fermanagh-based side can make their first provincial final since 2022, where they fell short against Banagher.

The lack of meaningful competition within the Erne County makes life difficult at times, but it also means that there’s a real allure surrounding the provincial championship and they’ll give it everything against Monaghan side Castleblayney.

Manager Teague said: “There’s definitely excitement when Ulster comes round. But there’s no doubt that it isn’t straightforward for us – we’re up against teams that came through really competitive championships, and Swatragh in the first round were a prime example of that.

“We just have to do our best to get ourselves up to championship pace, and thankfully we were on it from minute one (against Swatragh).”

Next in the pipeline is a formidable Castleblayney side that qualified for the last-four by virtue of a hard-earned win over a Middletown team with plenty of pedigree. Lisbellaw will need to be at their tip-top best to advance.

Teague said: “Castleblayney is a completely new challenge for us. We’d have been foolish to look beyond Swatragh so it’s only in the last week or so that we’ve had a look at ‘Blayney.

“Niall Garland is an obvious one to watch out for, and there’s a couple of Hughes lads who are serious hurlers. We’re under no illusions – anything less than our performance against Swatragh and we’ll not be going through.”

It has been a good season though, and while they have to look outside county boundaries for competitive matches, they couldn’t have fared any better in the Tyrone and Armagh leagues.

Subsequently they booked their place in the last four with a five-point victory over Swatragh at Brewster Park.

Fermanagh stalwart John Duffy showed all of his class and composure in their win over the Derry champions, hitting 10 points to lead Lisbellaw into the semi-final, while they have plenty of talent and ability elsewhere in their ranks.

“We were in the Armagh and Tyrone leagues this year and they both went well. We won Division One of the Armagh league for the first time actually, which is brilliant for us. We were coming up against the likes of Keady, Middletown, Carrickmore and Dungannon in that league. After that we went into the Tyrone league, again with Carrickmore and Dungannon as well as a few other Tyrone teams, and thankfully we won that as well.”