Roslea v St Patrick’s
Neighbours Roslea Shamrocks and St. Patrick’s will meet on Sunday at Brewster Park in this year’s Fermanagh senior championship as the Shamrocks look to regain a title that they have won three times in the last five seasons. They reached the final last year only to be defeated by Derrygonnelly as they looked for three in a row.
They face a St Pat’s side who have been operating in Division Two this season but the Donagh men have been in fantastic form finishing on 32 points with 16 wins from 18 games.
Roslea manager Brian Gormley is well aware of the threat posed by St Pats: “They have been playing very well in division two and have been racking up big scores so they should be full of confidence I would imagine,” the former Tyrone star stated.
Roslea finished top of Division One winning 13 times along the way and they remain one of the dominant forces of Fermanagh football and Gormely expressed his satisfaction with what he has seen to date;
“We had a reasonably good league campaign, no doubt about that but it is great now to be able to look forward to the championship. I think every player gears up for this time of year and the championship and we are no difference and I can see a real enthusiasm there in the players.”
Meanwhile the St Pat’s camp are in relaxed mood as they prepare for the Roslea challenge.
“We have no pressure on us at all. No-one will be expecting us to win so we just are going in there with no pressure on us and we are really looking forward to it,” revealed the St Pat’s captain Paul McManus who went on to say that the squad have been happy with their season to date;
“The league has went well and we have got a bit of confidence from that. We are a young side and that confidence is good. I suppose we could not have got a much harder draw in the championship. I think Roslea have been the best side in Fermanagh over the past five or six years and it will obviously be a big step up in quality from what we are used to but we can’t wait now to get going.”
The Shamrocks are a side laced with real quality. Much of the attention falls on the Quigley brothers Sean and Seamus in attack and they are the most potent inside threat in the county. The third of the Quigley boys, Connor, has been performing well in defence and they also have Niall Cassidy and James McMahon who are two top quality players.
For St Pat’s they will be looking for their blend of youth and experience to cause a shock. Eamon Maguire and Pat Cadden will lead an attack that has youthful energy and quality in the shape of Paul Og O’Reilly and Brian McDermott. Pat Grue is an important figure in defence for St Pats and he will need to marshal his colleagues well if they are to pull off what would be the shock of these quarter finals.