St. Michael’s coach Dom Corrigan says that his side are going to have to curtail the runners from the middle third if they are to overcome St. Paul’s Bessbrook and make it through to the semi-finals of this year’s MacRory Cup.
Corrigan watched Bessbrook seal their place in the quarter-finals by seeing off St. Pat’s, Armagh in the play-offs and he accepts that his side are going to have to produce a big performance if they are to win in Inniskeen on Sunday.
“It’s a great test for us,” said Corrigan. “We watched them beat a very determined and dogged St. Pat’s Armagh team who were six up with 15 to play and in that last 15 minutes there was a ten point turnaround with Bessbrook finishing up four point winners. That’s a sign of the quality and the character they have.”
And the St. Michael’s coach was impressed with the pace and running game of Sunday’s opponents.
“They are a very good running team and they have pace all around the pitch. Armagh dealt with Bessbrook fairly well but the one area that they didn’t do well was stopping the runners from the middle third. Jarlath Og Burns is a powerful figure and his partnership with Damian O’Hagan is rated as the best in the province. Then there is the likes of  Ryan Gaskin coming from centre half back and Colleges All Star Conor Clarke coming from left half back, so that’s the challenge being put down to our boys and it is something that we are going to have to counteract and get to grips with very early,” he added.
While Bessbrook are strong in the middle of the park, St. Michael’s suffered a huge blow with the loss of Michael Óg McGarrigle to injury in a recent challenge game which has ruled him out of Sunday’s clash.
“There is no hiding the fact that Michael Óg’s loss is a major blow to us but the mark of any good team is how they respond in adversity. All teams are going to be picking up injuries at different stages of a campaign and if we were to lose Michael Óg five minutes into a quarter-final match that maybe would have been worse than this one. At least we have time to prepare and other men have to step up and that’s why we have a panel and they have all been working hard since September,” he commented.
There is also a doubt over defender Nathan Tierney who had an operation on a broken nose and Corrigan will be looking for his more experienced players to step up to the plate on Sunday.
“In every MacRory group the Year 14 men form the basis of the team and the likes of Rory McCaffrey, James McCaffrey, Paul Maguire, Colm Jones, Conor Magee and Matthew McAloon will be important players for us,” said Dom.
St. Michael’s have shown great improvement over the course of the league stages of the competition, putting a heavy defeat to a highly rated Dungannon side behind them to go on and secure automatic qualification for the last eight. And Corrigan’s says that a recent challenge game against Dungannon showed the improvement in his side.
“To get into the automatic quarter spot showed the great work being put in by this group. They have definitely improved since we started out and the mark of the improvement was shown by the fact that we played Dungannon in October and we lost by 22 points and we played them recently behind locked gates and they beat us by seven points. That shows you the way the team have improved individually and collectively.”
St. Michael’s also played challenge games against some of the top teams in the country in preparation for the quarters and he feels they will have benefitted as much from them as Bessbrook will have from having already played a knock-out game. 
“It is a slight advantage that they have had a championship game under their belts but we have had some great games against the likes of Summerhill College, Sligo who I would expect to win Connacht, St. Jarlath’s Tuam and St. Pat’s, Dungannon who will definitely be one of the top sides in Ulster. We have gained valuable lessons from those games and we feel we are stronger for having played those teams.”
And he believes that the quarter-finals can be the making of a team.
“We have seen before that boys can become men on days like this. Teams of the past that have battled and grinded out quarter-final wins, maybe prior to it they didn’t know what they were capable of doing and it was only after 60 or 65 minutes work that they realised then what they are capable of. We’ll be looking boys to dig deep within themselves and to come up with a performance that is going to get us across the line.”
It is going to take a strong display from the Enniskillen side and Corrigan will look to the likes of captain Rory McCaffrey and Eoghan Curran in defence. 
At midfield Tiarnan Bogue is a key figure and could be joined by Daire O’Caithean and if St. Michael’s can get a good footing in this sector they will have good chance.
Further up the field, Corrigan will  need the likes of Lorcan McStravick, James Garrity, Timmy Boyd and Paul Breen to be at the their best.