Derrylin and Coa will do it all again at Brewster Park on Friday night as they look to finally decide the destination of the 2020 Junior Championship final.

The original date for the final was postponed due to Covid-19 restrictions and when the sides did eventually meet, they could not be separated, as Derrylin came from five behind late on to grab a second bite of the cherry.

The O’Connells will come into the game boosted by last weekend’s promotion from Division Two, and Manager Aiden Gilroy says that their whole focus is now on the championship.

“For us the league is now forgotten about, it is all about Championship, and this Friday night’s replay against Coa. We hopefully can give a better account of ourselves this time around and see where it can takes us,” he said.

Gilroy feels that there are lessons to be learned for his side from the first day.

“I think we need to get the match-ups better all throughout the field. We would have learned a lot from it, having watched the video of the game, and we need to make sure that we create a few more chances than we did the first day.

“Since that day we have had two massive league games and hopefully they will stand us in good stead and we will take a bit of confidence and belief out of them and hopefully it will be enough to push us through,” he commented.

He is though expecting a difficult test against the O’Dwyers.

“It will be another tough battle, and they will have learned things too from that first day. They were so close the first day and they will want to get the job finished.

“It will be an interesting battle but one that we will relish and look forward to,” he said.

Coa looked as if they had the job done at the first time of asking before Derrylin’s late rally and Manager Gary Donnelly felt that their decision-making let them down in the closing stages.

“We put ourselves in a good position going into the last five minutes as we were five points up, but looking back we weren’t happy with some of the decision-making in the last ten minutes, and we handed the momentum back to Derrylin.

“In fairness, they were probably the stronger team in the last few minutes, and in the end a draw was probably fair enough over the whole game,” he said.

Like his Derrylin counterpart, Donnelly believes that another close game lies in store, and he wants his side to make a better start than they did the last day out before they settled to the task.

“It is going to be another tight game, I can’t see it being any different.

“Derrylin showed that if we let them play they play good football and they have dangerous players. We have to be going in to try and set the tone early and impose ourselves on the game, because if we don’t it could be similar to the last game with them making a good start,” he said.

This may be a championship final but this year’s championship will get under way in a few weeks’ time and both will want to be taking that step up to Intermediate level.

“It has been a strange one, with it being postponed, as usually you would play the final and that would be your season over.

“Now though you could potentially have three weeks to get ready for an Intermediate Championship, so it is a good incentive for the sides,” said Donnelly.