U21B Football Championship semi-final

Con Magee’s Glenravel v Lamh Dhearg

Crumlin Leisure Centre 8-00pm

The second semi-final of the Antrim U21B football championship is scheduled for tonight when Con Magee’s Glenravel face Lamh Dhearg at Crumlin Leisure Centre at 8-00 and it looks a difficult one to predict.

The group stages of this year’s championship were expected to keep sides in their respective groups apart when it came to the knock out stages but on a number of instances teams were thrown together for a second time.

The withdrawal of St. Enda’s, one of the U21 championship favourites meant that Lamh Dhearg had to play Rossa twice in the group stages to determine who would qualify in second place in the A competition with the Shaw’s Road side winning that battle so Lamh Dhearg found themselves in the B semi-final.

Glenravel opened impressively enough with a win over Aldergrove at tonight’s venue but then lost to Erin’s Own Cargin and Tir na nOg, however the Con Magee’s performed well in both those games against sides who would have had  realistic aspirations of giving the A competition a lash.

Glenravel went on to defeat Gort na Mona by 1-10 to 1-8 in the quarter-final at tonight’s venue so the plastic pitch at Crumlin will have become familiar to them over the course of this campaign and they will go into tonight’s game in a positive frame of mind.

Conal Kerr in goals, Charlie Henry, Conor Carey, Niall Swann, Eoin Hynds, Aidan O’Donnell and Conleth O’Loan are all top performers and will backbone the Glens men’s challenge tonight against a Lamh Dhearg side who won’t hand them anything easy despite those defeats to Rossa.

Rossa defeated Lamh Dhearg for the second time in the space of four days to clinch a place in the last eight of the A championship.

The Shaws Road side hit two first half goals in less than sixty seconds to effectively take hold of the game through Conall Shannon and Eoghan McMenamin.

Lamh Dhearg began the second-half well but a third goal from Daire Matthews looked to have ended any hope for the Hannahstown men – only for Cameron Flynn to quickly respond at the other end.

But when Tiarnan Murphy tucked away Rossa’s fourth goal there was no way back for the Dhearg and the holders were safely into the last eight of the A section.

Just what effect those losses will have on the Hannastown side remains to be seen but they were playing a useful Rossa side who went on to defeat Tir na nOg in the A quarter-final and now face Dunloy in the semi-final of the A competition later in the week.

Owen McKeown is the man who carries the greatest danger for the Red Hands, hitting 0-4 last time out while Cameron Flynn, Mark Finnegan, Pearse Fegan and Mark Summersgill are others who carry a real threat.

Lamh Dhearg enjoyed good spells against both St. Gall’s and Rossa in a tight section and those games could stand to them tonight and despite those defeats they will travel to Crumlin in confident mode but if Glenravel can get their running game going then they can advance to meet Moneyglass in the final.