By 
ULSTER INTERMEDIATE CLUB CHAMPIONSHIP
A STRONG first ever performance in the Ulster Club Intermediate Championship is now the big target for Clonoe who will get proceedings underway at Healy Park on Saturday night with a quarter final clash against Down champions, Saval.
It is twelve years since the O’Rahilly’s made their third and most recent appearance in the provincial Senior Club Championship. On that day in 2013, they lost out to Ballinderry by four points in the first round. Now, in 2025, they are makng their return to the stage following a memorable Tyrone Intermediate final success against Eglish nearly three weeks ago.
There was no Ulster Intermediate when they last won at this level in Tyrone more than 30 years ago.
Standing in Clonoe’s way is a Saval team also making its return to the top grade following a short sojourn at Intermediate level. The Down side are spearheaded by county star, Pat Havern, and will pose tough opposite for the Tyrone champions. But, according to Connor McAliskey, this is an opportunity which Clonoe are determined to embrace.
“The Ulster Club is going to be another challenge for this team. The last time we won a Championship and got to this level was in 2013 and we were beaten by Ballinderry in Celtic Park,” he said.
“So going into the provincial Championship now is unknown territory for 95 per-cent of the current Clonoe players. A couple of us old hands were there then and again today, and we’ll go into the Ulster Championship the same way that we entered the Tyrone Championship.
“That’s with a full belief and confidence in our own ability. A cousin of mine was managing in Down and was talking about their champions. We celebrated winning in Tyrone and then settled down to get ready for the next game.
“The Ulster Club is a big target for teams now. If you look at all the Tyrone teams, that’s their aim. Look at Errigal Ciaran last year and how they started to gain ground. Maybe the reason why Tyrone teams have not done as well at senior level is because it’s so hard to win the senior title and you can’t prepare for anything else.
“But in Intermediate and Junior, Tyrone teams have always gone into Ulster very strong.”
Clonoe’s record so far this year is impeccable. In both the Tyrone League and championship they have gone unbeaten, winning the grand total of every one of their 19 matches.
“At the start of this year, we wanted to win the championship. After winning the league people said that Clonoe could win the championship if we had the desire. But we never batted and eyelid because that was our aim right from the start of the year.
“All that we want to do now is go into Ulster, put ourselves in the best position and represent the county and ourselves well during the campaign.
“We took the Tyrone Championship very seriously, and everybody was saying that Eglish would beat us. Their performances showed that they had the ability to do that and we took nothing for granted. But we have a belief in our team to dig deep and when we did that we felt that we were the best team in the Division and I think the Tyrone title probably proved a lot of people wrong with 19 wins out of 19 in Intermediate football.
“It was emotional winning the Intermediate title because everything just came together at once. There was a lot of hard work, we won 15 out of 15 in the Tyrone league and just felt that we maybe had a little bit of unfinished business in the Championship.”
