By Niall Gartland

AQUINAS Diocesan Grammar School will go in search of a historic maiden MacLarnon Cup title when they take on St Eunan’s, Letterkenny today (Thursday) at the Dub.

The game is on their doorstep while their opponents face a 312-kilometre round trip, but they’ll need to plot a reversal of their group-stage encounter against the Donegal school, which they lost.

Managing the team is John McAteer – son of long-standing Down GAA Secretary Sean Óg – and he says that there has been a concerted effort in the school to rise through the ranks of Ulster Schools football.

“When the school opened in 1993, Mr (Paul) Evans entered our first Ulster Colleges team and at that time there was only B football. Then the regrading happened, and we had teams in C and D.

“Generally now all our school teams are in C, and if they go well, we try to get them up to B.

“Around 2000 we entered the MacLarnon – this current crop were third years and we had them in mind. We took some bad kickings, then we won a game, and the next year we tried to win another game and so on.

“Every year, the team coming behind them wanted to do better than the team in front of them and that’s been a big driving force within the school.”

Aquinas survived a ferocious comeback from last year’s beaten finalists Dean Maguirc in a wet and windy Cherryvale to come through a gripping semi-final by a single point.

The school is based on the Ravenhill Road so the Cherryvale Playing Fields are essentially their home venue.

“We obviously pull from the Bredagh club, and we’ve pupils from St Enda’s, St Brigid’s, Carryduff. We’re a co-ed school with girls and boys. We have about 20-25 Gaelic teams and we try to max out what we have.”

This evening’s MacLarnon Cup final will go down in the annals of the school if victory goes their way. It won’t be easy against a seasoned St Eunan’s team.

“We had a really tough group and ended up in a group of five. We started off well with a win over Holy Trinity, Cookstown, then St Eunan’s brought us back down to earth.

“We responded well to that and, with the way the group worked out, we finished top. That got us a quarter-final against St Louis, Ballymena, and then a semi-final against Carrickmore, who obviously went to the MacLarnon final last year and took it to a replay.

“We just managed to squeak over the line by a point.

“We got there anyway, and here we are, preparing for the big day. St Eunan’s have won the MacLarnon before and they’re an established Ulster Schools team.

“Their experience is something we’re going to have to deal with if we’re to get a result on the day.”