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Beragh’s Owens hopes competitive league games will stand to them

A PROTRACTED run in the Intermediate Championship by Beragh is long overdue, team captain Cathal Owens insists.

The Red Knights last got their hands on the Paddy Cullen Cup in 2000 but have struggled to mount a concerted bid for glory in that competition ever since (albeit they did get to the Junior decider in 2018).

This year the team set out on their latest title tilt against Drumragh on Sunday afternoon, and despite their indifferent league campaign, Beragh will still go into the contest as strong favourites against the side who propped up the Division Two table. Not that Cathal Owens views that scenario as quite so clear cut.

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“ Drumragh have been in a couple of Junior Championship Finals over the last few years so they have shown they know what it takes in knock-out football to get over the line.

“ We have played them regularly enough over the years and it is always a tight affair. Even this year we got a couple of lucky goals against them but they showed their quality. They kept most of the ball against us and made us work hard to get it back so it will be a very tight game come Sunday 8th.”

Beragh didn’t secure their Intermediate status until the final league game of the season when a 0-10 to 0-5 victory over Cookstown wiped away the spectre of a potential relegation play-off. Points from Martin Rodgers and Cathal Owens eventually helped the Red Knights register a double scores victory.

The skipper admits that it has been a tough slog in 2024 compared to the previous year when Beragh remained in contention at the top end of the table for much of the campaign.

“ We just got over the line in the final match with Cookstown. Over the course of the year we were down there for a reason so we were just grateful to get out of it at the end up.

“ In Division Two any day a team can beat another, no matter where they stand in the table. Last year certain things may have went our way and this year they didn’t. Last year we were winning games by a point or two and this year we were losing them by a point or two.

“ And in the condensed period over the last few weeks if an important player picks up an injury they miss three or four games because you are playing midweek too. It’s difficult to draft a player in of the same calibre of the player that you do lose. That’s basically the main reason that the year mapped out the way it did.”

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Cathal though feels that the team have hit some decent form at the back end of their league programme which hopefully should now stand to them heading into the Sarsfields showdown.

“ The last couple of games against Gortin and Beragh were tough competitive affairs which were good preparation for the Championship as there was so much on the line. Across the whole run in in the league we treated them like Championship games. I think we won four of the last six too which hopefully suggest we are hitting a bit of form so let’s hope that continues over the course of the Championship.

“ Since we have been in Intermediate we have never really got a consistent run going in the Championship so it would be good for the club to get a few games this season.”

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