Cross lauds progress of county’s young hurlers

TYRONE U17 hurling boss Chris Cross is delighted with the aptitude of his young side as they hone their preparations on the training pitches of Garvaghey for Saturday’s Celtic Challenge Final against Sligo in Ballyshannon.

Chris, who signed off on a lengthy senior intercounty career at the end of last year, wasn’t long away from the scene as he was appointed as manager of the county’s U17 team.

The Naomh Colum Cille man felt a degree of trepidation as he’d never before coached at county level, but it’s gone extremely well and they qualified for the Celtic Challenge final with a win over Westmeath nearly a fortnight ago.

Praising the attitude of his players and the facilities at their disposal, Cross said: “This is my first year coaching at county level, and it took me a while to find my feet and it certainly needs organisation.

“But the lads have all worked hard, there’s been briliant buy-in and they’re all enjoying their hurling.

“They’ve access to strength and conditioning and they’re up using Garvaghey and see what it takes to be a good county player.”

“In the past lads would move into the senior squad on the back of playing for the club but now there’s a pathway where our U17s and U20s will feed into the senior squad, which in previous years wasn’t really the case.”

Chris’ right-hand man is their lead coach Mark Winters, whose due diligence and way with the players has been a major factor in their run to the final.

“Mark is very meticulous in his coaching which is brillliant. When there’s a drill going on, he’s great at quietly saying to a lad that they’re not doing such and such right and how to rectify it.

“I can’t praise him enough for how meticulous he is and the lads are really getting the benefit of that.

“Our hooking and blocking and turnover rates have increased game-after-game and that would be down to Mark.”

Represented on the panel are lads from Eoghan Ruadh Dungannon, Éire Óg Carrickmore, Fintona, Omagh, Strabane and Benburb.

Along the way they’ve had some impressive wins, none more so than when they played superbly to beat Offaly by 4-16 to 2-20 in the Round Robin phase of the competition.

They claimed knock-out win over Armagh and Westmeath, and they’ll head into Saturday’s final against Sligo feeling quietly confident that they can claim the spoils of victory.

Cross said: “We’ll give it our best shot but it won’t be easy. Sligo have a good forward line, they’re scoring lots of goals and they’re putting a lot of development work into their hurling.

“Any time I played them at senior level, it was always a dogfight, they’re a proud county and they’ll be looking to win this final as much as we are, but our lads are so excited about it and we’re hoping it’ll be another good day at the office.”