Goalscorer Donnelly pleased with Carmen’s display

SENIOR CHAMPIONSHIP QUARTER-FINAL

RORY Donnelly, the scorer of a key second half goal in Carrickmore’s five point victory over Edendork on Sunday afternoon, hopes that they are hitting their peak just at the right time of the season.

With a better hand to play with right now, after a raft of absentees blighted their league campaign, Carmen have produced two polished Championship displays on the bounce to move into the last four of the O’Neill Cup.

Donnelly calmly slotted away a goal just at a stage in the contest when Edendork were threatening a comeback and he feels the side are better placed to give the Championship a rattle than was the case in recent years.

“Last year we had a heartbreaking defeat against Killyclogher at this stage so it was really good to get over the line.

“Probably the last few years we pushed hard in the league and maybe peaked too soon. Come the Championship we had lost our legs but this is the time of year you want to be pushing on. It’s these latter stages where you want to be playing your best football so we will look forward to the semi-final now.”

Carrickmore coasted into a 1-8 to 0-2 advantage after a quarter of an hour, and if anything the gap could have been even wider. Donnelly stated that it was always their intent to try and fly out of the blocks.

“We were working very hard as a forward unit. We forced a few turnovers but we let it slip a bit and they came back into the game well. They have quality players all over the pitch, we knew that so we were just happy to get off to that quick start. It gave us that momentum for the rest of the game.

“We know they had great two point shooters in Darren (McCurry) and Niall (Morgan) but it’s a credit to our defence we kept them quite quiet throughout the game. We pushed on at the end and got a few crucial scores when they were needed.”

With the two heavy favourites for the Championship- Errigal Ciaran and Trillick- having spluttered somewhat over the weekend, the O’Neill Cup race appears wide open, but Rory warns that it would be foolish to think they won’t still be in the shake-up.

“Edendork was a great test for us today and we are pleased to get through to the semi-final. You just look at the games over the past few nights, any game in the Tyrone Championship isn’t going to be easy. Those two teams won but they will be looking to bounce back probably in the semi-finals because they will be thinking they didn’t perform as well as they expected.”