Featured Image: The Casements U16A Championship winning side of 2024 who will be back in action in the Minor A final at Dunsilly on Friday night against St. Paul’s
Antrim Minor A Football Championship Final
Casement’s Portglenone v St. Paul’s
Dunsilly – Friday 7-30
Friday night’s Minor Football Championship final at Dunsilly has all the makings of a thriller.
This final may have come a year early for a youthful Portglenone, all but two of whom will be underage again next year.
Last year the Casement’s defeated St. Brigid’s in the U16A decider at tomorrow night’s venue and the Bannsiders were again victorious over the Musgrave Park side in this year’s Minor semi-final.
Owen Doherty’s side began their journey to tomorrow night’s decider with a hard earned away victory to Erin’s Own Cargin, the Ports running out 1-18 to 2-13 winners in a very competitive contest.
It didn’t get any easier for Casements when they travelled to St. Brigid’s in the quarter-final but again the South West side dug deep to emerge victorious on a 1-16 to 0-14 scoreline.
It was back on the road again in last week’s semi-final against St. Enda’s at Hightown where the Casement’s journey looked like it was coming to an end when they trailed by 8 points.
Once again however the Portglenone youngsters showed great resilience and fighting spirit as they finished strongly to emerge victorious by the minimum to set up a meeting with St. Paul’s in tomorrow night’s final.
Their opponents in Friday night’s final, St. Paul’s will start this one as slight favourites. Despite only finishing 5th in the Minor league division 1, a point behind Portglenone, they have sprung to life in this year’s championship.
They travelled to Moneyglass in the quarter-final and recorded a six point win over St. Ergnat’s to set up a semi-final meeting with a Creggan side who had been excellent in their opening two championship games.
The Kickham’s had posted an impressive 2-21 against St. Mary’s Aghagallon in a preliminary round encounter and scored 4-11 away to St. Gall’s in the quarter-final and would have started favourites against St. Paul’s in the semi-final.
The Shaw’s Road side turned the form book on its head however when they travelled to the Staffordstown Road and beat Creggan by 4-15 to 1-14 as they produced their best performance of the season.
St. Pauls are a big, strong, physical side with Shea Kearns in goals and Brendan McMorrow, Ciaran McCann and and U16 star, Jay Gault imposing in defence.
Cormac Trainor and Conal Burke form a strong mid-field partnership while Ciaran Rogers Duffy, Niall Carmichael and Sean McClaren are potent attacker.
There’s a feeling that this final may have come a year too early for the Portglenone lads but their management will be having none of that and will feel the fighting spirit they have shown throughout the championship will stand them in good stead.
John McAtamney is a competent keeper and Tom Duffin, Christy McDonnell, Ryan McKeever and Oisin McAtamney are strong defenders with the ability to attack when the occasion arises.
Odhran Doherty at mid-field could be their ace in the pack where he forms a formidable partnership with Tom Convery while James McVeigh returns to their attack after missing the semi-final where Conor Burns and Eoghan McErlean pose a scoring threat.
As I said at the start, St. Paul’s will start Friday night’s final as slight favourites but despite the fact that most of their opponents side are under age next season, Poertglenone have forged a winning habit over the last couple of years and should not be ruled out.
