Sleacht Néill begin defence of senior hurling title

REIGNING champions Sleacht Néill begin their bid for a 12th successive Derry senior hurling at home to Ballinascreen on Sunday.

Should the four-time Ulster champions keep their hands on the Fr Collins Cup, they’ll go joint second with Lavey in the roll of honour with 18 titles.

While they are a familiar face in terms of titles, there is a change at the top this season since manager Michael McShane stepped away.

After nine years at the helm, the Ballycastle native has been replaced by former Armagh player Paul McCormack as manager.

The Emmet’s won the league again this season, on head-to-head from Banagher, and now begin their championship challenge.

While they’ve had a regular supply of players from the underage ranks, they’ll have to plan without the county duo Ruairí Ó Mianáin (injury) and Meehaul McGrath who spent the summer hurling in America.

They’ll be fancied to begin with a win over Ballinascreen who had a consistent league campaign themselves.

Also on Sunday’s agenda, Banagher will take on Lavey in what will be a tightly contested encounter.

The hallmark of the domestic scene in Derry is how the rest of the teams have been capable of beating each other away from the Sleacht Néill dominance.

The Derry Championship is again arranged in two groups of four with the top two advancing to the semi-final play-offs where the winners advance to the final and the runners up going to the intermediate final.

The bottom two teams in the groups will then play in the junior semi-finals.

Lavey have missed out on the senior end of the championship in recent seasons and will be keen to change that this season with their recent successes at underage level.

The tie of the weekend will take place at Owenbeg on Saturday with Kevin Lynch’s taking on Swatragh.

The Davitt’s were the last winners of the title, in 2012, before their neighbours’ stranglehold on the cup.

There has been little to choose between them in recent seasons with Kevin Lynch’s also beginning to churn out underage titles again.

The final game of the weekend, also part of the Saturday Owenbeg decider, will see Eoghan Rua take on Na Magha.

Both propped up the league with Eoghan Rua running out 4-6 to 2-11 winners when they met back in June.

Goals have always been the ace up their sleeve and it helped them topple Lavey last season.