Augher’s Kavanagh wary of ‘Hill climb

A place in the last four of the Junior Championship is the prize at stake at O’Neills Healy Park on Friday night when Augher and Derrytresk go head to head.

Both sides won their opening round games in contrasting ways as Derrytresk required penalties to beat Clann na Gael while Augher overcame Killyman with a bit too spare. The St.Macartans will start the game as favourites but their ace marksman Darragh Kavanagh is expecting a very tough battle from the men from the Hill.

“You get nothing soft against Derrytresk any time that you play them,” said Darragh.

“They have a great pedigree at this level and have a good mixture of youth and experience and a good management team in place as well. The likes of Cathal O’Neill and Niall Gavin know what it takes to win games, they are quality players who know where the posts are.

“ They beat us in the opening league game this season but that will count for little this time around and we are under no illusions as to the size of the task facing us.

“ They are really tough opposition and the fact that they had to go to extra time and penalties to win their opening game just shows you the
grit and determination that they have.

“Derrytresk are going to be there throughout the game and they are going to stay with us and we will have to produce our best if we are going to win.

In the league we weren’t at our best and we struggled to find form consistently and hopefully that form is now coming at the right time in the championship.”

Augher certainly looked the part in their opening championship encounter with Killyman as they blitzed their opponents scoring 5-19 with full forward Kavanagh helping himself to an impressive personal haul of ten points.

One of the things that stood out in that victory was their work rate from start to finish despite the result being known long before the final whistle and Darragh heaped praise on their management team for that.

“Our management team had us primed and it’s a credit to them the condition that they had us in,” he said. “ We have worked really hard throughout the year and it was frustrating at times in the league when it wasn’t coming to fruition during games but thankfully it was there against Killyman and hopefully that will also be the case against Derrytresk.

“ We have got more of our established players back in recent weeks and they are starting to hit form. It’s always nice to win a championship game especially as it has been four years since we last won one.

“ It has been a long time coming for this group of players and too long for a club like us as we have such a proud tradition in championship football and we do pride ourselves on that. It was great the way that things clicked for us against Killyman and now we have Derrytresk to look forward to and that is an altogether different challenge.”