Tones searching for consistency says McQuillan

By Shaun Casey

WOLFE TONES pulled off one of the results of the weekend in the opening round of the Armagh Intermediate Championship beating Division 2A league champions Tullysaran by eight points, but they won’t be getting carried away says the experienced Ryan McQuillan.

Peter Nugent’s men will hope to back up that first-round win when they travel to Camlough on Saturday afternoon to take on Shane O’Neill’s, who also got off the mark last weekend with a 2-12 to 3-6 win over Clann Eireann IIs.

Finding a level of consistency is the goal for the Derrymacash club, who just missed out on promotion from Division 2B in the league, finishing third in the table.

They did reach the last four of the championship last year and will be targeting that stage again – at least.

Tullysaran were as tough an opening game as anyone could have asked for in the Intermediate Championship, and there’s two more tricky games left in the group against Shane O’Neill’s and Clann Eireann IIs.

“It’s a tough group and their all tough in fairness, there are no easy games,” said McQuillan. “We saw the results last weekend; there were plenty of Division 2B teams taking scalps so it’s going to be tough.

“Every team will fancy their chances and it’s going to come down to points difference maybe. It’s great to win the first one but our focus will be on Shane O’Neill’s now this weekend.

“There’s still a lot of work to do, we’re by no means the finished article and one swallow doesn’t make a summer. We haven’t been consistent all year, so we have to go and try and win the next one.”

Home advantage played its part for the Tones against Tullysaran and McQuillan enjoyed getting to play championship football on that familiar patch. They’re on the road this week but return home for round three.

“We’re lucky to be playing championship football at home, it’s great and you’ve got to make use of that when you can. You need to get after your home games and try to get some points on the board.”

Wolfe Tones were the underdogs heading into the opening round despite enjoying home comforts, but were on the front foot right from the very first whistle.

They shut down Tullysaran’s key men and controlled the tempo of the contest.

Matthew Hagan’s late goal was the icing on the cake in their well-deserved 1-15 to 0-10 win and they’ll hope to build on that now in the coming weeks.

“It was nice to get over the line. I thought we played pretty well to be honest, it’s been a rough year in the league,” McQuillan added. “We lost five games, three of them at home, and we wouldn’t be happy with that.

“We needed to gather ourselves up and go after this championship group. It’s going to be tough but that was a good start, we thought we controlled the game well although they shot a few off target.”