Moy inching closer towards redemption

INTERMEDIATE CHAMPIONSHIP SEMI-FINAL

By Niall Gartland

THE Moy are coming to the boil nicely ahead of Friday’s Intermediate Championship semi-final against Eglish – though the same could well be said of their opponents.

Managed by Gerard McCrudden and Colm Cavanagh, who made a cameo appearance from the bench on their last day out, the Tir na Nogs swatted aside Aghyaran and the Rock en route to the last four.

They fell short in the last two Intermediate Championship Finals, so there’s obviously a drive to make amends, but they face a tough test of their ambitions against a strong Eglish side this weekend.

Their formlines have been remarkably similar all year – Eglish finished second in Division Two, accruing 26 point across 15 games, while Moy ended up third in the pecking order with 25 points to their name. And when they crossed paths, the Moy ran out narrow victors on a scoreline of 0-16 to 0-14.

Speaking in the direct aftermath of their recent win over the Rock, before the draw was made, joint-manager McCrudden acknowledged that the competition was stiffening.

“You’ve Eglish and Clonoe, two seasoned teams who came down from Division One last year. Aghaloo did very well against Beragh. There’s no easy games at this level and we know that from our experience of previous years.”

Top-scoring against the Rock was their attacking talisman Michael Conroy, who registered a whopping 15 points across the hour, including six two-pointers. Eglish too have an attacking star of their own in Ethan Jordan, who memorably scored 17 points in their first-round win against Coalisland.

“Michael Conroy’s a fabulous footballer. He has that in his locker. A wee bit of a breeze might have helped him in the second-half but some of those scores were brilliant.”

McCrudden also had warm words for Steve Donaghy, who kept Rock threat Shane Murphy relatively quiet. Donaghy was a key member of Tyrone’s All-Ireland U20-winning team of three years ago and has developed into a mainstay of the Moy team.

“Steve’s a massive player for us now. He’s one of the experienced pros. We give him a big role against Shane Murphy and I thought he had a fantastic game. It was a really disciplined performance.”

It’s hard to gauge whether Moy have made the requisite improvements to go one step better than their county final defeats of 2023 and 2024. That said, their recent victory over Rock was much more convincing than their equivalent meeting this time last year. On that occasion a late Colm Cavanagh pointed shot Moy through to the semi-finals, but this time there was much of a cushion on the scoreboard.

“It was more comfortable than last year,” said McCrudden. “To be fair they lost Liam Nugent pre-game so that was a big blow for them.

“The first half was close and we expected that. We’d a bit of a breeze in the second-half and we were delighted with how we saw the game out.”