BY RYAN FERRY
AN Appearance in the Under 21 ‘A’ Championship Final was once an annual occurrence for Naomh Conaill but this Sunday, they are aiming to get their hands on silverware at this grade for the first time since 2012.
Naomh Conaill’s success at senior level over the last two decades can be attributed to many factors, and one of those is that they featured in eight Under 21 finals in-a-row, winning five of them.
Their good run came to an end when they lost to Kilcar in Fintra in 2013, and since then they have only been in the final twice against Gaoth Dobhair in ’17 Gaoth Dobhair and St Eunan’s in ’19 and were well beaten on both occasions.
However, they are back with a formidable side this year and team manager Michael O’Malley is eagerly awaiting the final in Ballyshannon.
“It would be great to win it.
“That period from 2006 to 2013 was a massive source of pride for the club.
“It’s a competition we really enjoyed and we haven’t really gotten a foot in it since but hopefully we can do the business this weekend.
“It’s a great competition. It’s just unfortunate that it gets pushed to the very end of the year where you are playing in conditions like this. I think it’s an important competition.”
O’Malley admits that it has been a testing campaign with their senior team in Ulster and schools football to contend with but they have dealt with the obstacles that have come their way.
He has been particularly pleased with how the minor players in the team have adapted to the higher standard of football.
“Niall (Roarty) is a fantastic player, I had him at minor and Under 16 for a few years, he’s cut from the same cloth as Finnbarr.
“He’s a real dogged player, especially this year he must be a nightmare to mark – he doesn’t give you anything cheap.
“We have two or three other minor players in there too, Daithi Molloy did a massive job in midfield against Termon and Stephen McDevitt chipped in with two or three scores and he won plenty of breaking balls and his fair share of dirty ball, they’ve done massive work for us.”
O’Malley is not surprised that Four Masters have reached the final and he would have known it was highly likely that they would run into the Donegal men at some stage if they wanted to achieve their goal.
Masters have been cleaning up at underage level but Naomh Conaill have asked them real questions at minor grade over the last two seasons and it’s all about trying to take the next step now.
“I haven’t seen much of them in the Under 21 championship I’ll be honest but at the same time we’re not unfamiliar with them.
“I would have had our minor team this year and they would have a good number of minor players playing and the seniors came across them this year too. There won’t be many of them we are not familiar with.
“Four Masters, all the praise they get they earned every bit of it, they have their championships to show for it and they’re obviously defending champions at Under 21.
“You know if you’re going to win it you’re more than likely going to have to beat them along the way somewhere. That’s what is up against us and we won’t shy away from it.”
