Fintona captain pleased with buoyant mood at Pearses

FINTONA captain Niall Murray is savouring the early season buzz around St Lawrence’s Park right now, albeit aware that the campaign is still in its infancy stage.

The Pearses sit joint top of the Division Three table alongside both Cookstown and Drumragh after four rounds of league matches, maintaining their 100 per cent winning record away to early pacesetters Drumquin last weekend.

Tommy McGrath got the all-important Fintona goal in their 1-9 to 0-10 triumph but what was equally as impressive was the fact that the victors kept a clean sheet against a red-hot Tones attack. Niall Murray was delighted at the outcome.

“ We were both unbeaten going into the game. Last year we just about beat Drumquin by a point so we knew it would be another tough test in fairness. They had shot the lights out in their three previous games, hitting something like ten/ eleven goals.

“ They have a couple of deadly forwards in Oisin Gormley and Sean McDonagh so we knew we were going to be up against it. We were just happy to get through it to be honest.”

Derrygonnelly duo Martin Greene and Kevin Cassidy are spearheading the club’s fortunes along the line this term aided by a couple of local stalwarts. Murray is impressed with their initial impact on the side’s fortunes but appreciates that stiffer tests lie ahead.

“ We have new voices in this year and in fairness they have been really good from the start. We are really enjoying our football at the minute to be fair.

“ We won three of our first four games by three points or less so we have had some really tough tests. This week we have Derrytresk who have had some good results themselves and reached the Championship semi-final last year. Again we know we have to be on it to get a result.

“ But we are targetting the league, there is no point saying anything different. We have ambitions of getting out of Division Three into Intermediate football so you have to be on it every week because of how competitive the league is.”

A burgeoning youth set-up has instilled a growing feeling of positivity around the club, while several including the Watson brothers, Caolan Donnelly, Tom Gavin and Callum Welsh, were part of the All-Ireland winning Omagh CBS school team. Murray (25) admits that having success in their midst helps to breed success.

“ We have had a couple of good underage teams and even this year the under-16s are in Garde One and being quite competitive each week while the under-20s are in the County Final this weekend.

“ We also had a good representation on the Omagh Hogan Cup winning team and three of them players are with the senior panel this year and have carried their form on from the Hogan Cup. So there is plenty of talent within Fintona and it is a case of getting them bedded into the senior team and pushing on from there.

“ Last year the average age of the squad was twenty-two and this year it is probably even younger again. But there is still a few older hands as well because you need that touch of experience along the way.”

Niall cautions that several others teams at Junior level harbour similar ambitions to Fintona.

“ There would be six or seven teams who would look at the league or championship and think they have a realistic hope of winning. They would all be setting targets to gain promotion and we would like to think we are part of that group. But if you are to get out of Divsion Three you are going to have to work hard for it.”