AIB All-Ireland Club Intermediate Football Championship Semi-Final: St Patrick’s, Cullyhanna (Armagh) v Allenwood GFC (Kildare) (Saturday, Pairc Teilteen, 1pm)
Aidan Nugent wasn’t complaining, saying his Christmas was “pretty quiet and different”. That’s because he gave the St Patrick’s Curriehanna men time to reflect on a memorable year at the club.
With county and state honors on the line, South Armagh players will take to the national stage on Saturday to take on Leinster intermediate champions Allenwood from Kildare, also known as Johnny Doyle Country.
As soon as county heroes Nugent, Ross McQuillan and Jason Duffy returned to the club, all systems stopped.
Next game. Next session. Next game.
Every drop of sweat shed over the autumn and winter has been dedicated to returning Calliehanna to his rightful place in senior football.
After an injury-plagued season with Armagh, Nugent will likely squeeze a little more out of what has been an incredibly successful season for the club, albeit at intermediate level.
Nugent has been enjoying a break since Cavan’s nerve-wracking Ulster final victory over Ballyhayes on December 10 until now.
“It used to be game by game, next session, next session, but for probably the first time in the last few months I’ve been able to sit back and understand what’s hanging in front of me.” said Nugent, who runs R8 Train. Recovers the Gym/Cafe base in Armor City.
“But there was a couple of weeks between the Ulster final and the All-Ireland semi-final, so I have no problem making the sacrifice over Christmas.”
Make no mistake, Nugent, McQuillan and Duffy are worth a gold medal for Curriehanna this season, but they are not naive enough to think that everything will be fine once they return from county duty.
Cullyhanna has experienced several heartbreaking relegations to the middle tier of Gaelic football, but a few painful experiences have taught him otherwise.
Had not attention been drawn to the club’s dire situation (in recent years the reserve team had to be disbanded due to lack of personnel), Cullyhanna might have fallen even further from his former position.
“This season has played out differently than it originally did because we brought some boys back from America and Australia. But the boys who had been there for the last six or seven years were fed up with the way things were going. Was.
“So we got together last November for preseason and got the ball rolling, and in the past we might not have had boys participate. But this year we have a whole deck to choose from. I knew we had a serious opportunity.”If the boys worked together, we could achieve something.”
“I think the management team deserves a lot of credit for that because we were relegated twice in three years and it wasn’t their fault, we just didn’t try as players. ” They could have easily left, but they stayed at the club. If they were gone, we might be in the unknown, and if someone new comes in, we don’t know who will leave and who will stay.
“This could have been a four- or five-year project instead of one year.” [to get back to senior level]”
From the game that beat St. Paul’s in the county final, to the Nugent offense that snatched a last-gasp winner against a fancied Pomeroy team in the state quarterfinals, to the defeat of Leatroim in the semifinals and Pierce Casey over the clones. Until the free play that decided the winner of the Ballyeyes, all these moments are preserved pristine in the collective memory bank of St. Patrick’s Church.
But for Nugent, the catalyst for success was the group stage of the County Championship.
“I thought they helped us a lot because we were coming back from the county and we were doing well and we thought everything was going well. But I don’t know what strategy management has put in place. We need five or six weeks to see what we’re trying to do and fit into it.
“It’s up to us to adapt. We’re not here to stand out and run the show. If we approach it that way, we won’t disrupt the team’s rhythm for long.
“We won some of the group games by 15 or 20 points. We were outmatched, but we played well and pushed through to the 60th minute. That gave us confidence going forward. ”
Allenwood, managed by Noel Mooney, are a mirror image of South Armagh’s men, a club that is capitalizing on its mid-tables and returning seniors.
Despite his age, Johnny Doyle remains an important figure for Allenwood, while current Kildare ace Darragh Malone is also someone to keep an eye on from a Curriehanna perspective.
But like Cullihana, Allenwood is also very reliant on a team that has seen it climb to regional heights this season.
What Calliehanna showed, especially in the matches against Pomeroy and Barry Hayes, was her mastery of staying in the game even in difficult moments.
“During a game you might think things aren’t going your way, but that’s just a momentary misunderstanding.We may not have played our best against Ballyhayes, but I don’t think we were losing the whole game. .
“It’s important to stay in the game and not panic when things aren’t going your way. Once you get into the last 10 minutes of the game, don’t do anything rash, just keep chipping away and hopefully That can catch us “crossing the line.” We did that well in the quarter-finals and semi-finals against Ulster and that gave us confidence. ”
