Clogher will shuffle pack after making All-Ireland progress

CLOGHER Valley head coach, Stephen Bothwell, will shuffle his pack this coming Saturday when they travel to Judge’s Road to take on City of Derry in the Miller, McCall, Wylie Junior Cup.

Having won all nine of their Ulster Championship Division One fixtures so far with a try-scoring bonus points and having claimed victory in their two All-Ireland Junior Cup clashes, including Saturday’s 22-19 win at Cooke in the quarter-finals, Bothwell admits that several players are in need of a rest.

“We’ll have to see how sore we are after today [Saturday] and we’ll make a decision about how we approach it because there are a few boys getting tired, so we will see,” he mused.

Clogher Valley continued their defence of the All-Ireland Junior Cup with a hard-fought Ulster derby success against Cooke at Shaw’s Bridge on Saturday.

The men from The Cran weren’t at their fluent best on a chilly afternoon at Shaws Bridge and progress to the last four wasn’t secured until the final whistle as the Belfast outfit made sure of a tense finish.

In the end, a brace of tries from Taine Haire and one from David Maxwell, who also kicked two conversions and a penalty booked Stephen Bothwell’s side’s place in the semi-finals where they will travel to Ballyclare’s conqueror’s Newcastle West, while Enniskillen, who defeated Kilfeacle and District, take on Monkstown on the other side of the draw.

And one thing is for sure, the Valley will need to play much better than they did against Cooke if they are to take another step towards retaining their crown.

“You knew there was a bigger bite from them, they were well up for it,” Bothwell observed.

“We knew what we were going to get, we knew we were going to get it tight, but we compounded things in the first half by making too many mistakes.

“But we got through it and we’re delighted to get through to the semi-final but we’d need to play better than we did today!”

Cooke had the elements with them in the first half and that, allied to a worrying number of errors, allowed the home side to reach the interval 12-10 ahead, with Clogher’s scores coming from Taine Haire’s first try, converted by Maxwell, who added a penalty too.

After the break, Maxwell dotted down quickly after the restart as Clogher attempted to stamp their authority on proceedings and they looked home and dry when Haire completed his brace to make it 22-12 to the Tyrone men.

But Cooke weren’t about to give up and they battled back with a converted try to leave the closing stages a much more nail-biting affair than was needed for the travelling Valley faithful.