Injured Eskra captain Niall to sit out campaign

ESKRA captain Niall Marlow is set to miss their looming Junior Championship campaign through injury, but he’s philosophical about the matter and is ready to offer his support from the sidelines in Friday’s first round clash against Aghaloo.

Coincidentally, Marlow happened to sustain the season-ending hand injury in their league encounter against Aghaloo back in July and the vastly experienced campaigner recently underwent surgery as a consequence.

He’s been ruled out of the Championship but mindset is everything and he’s philosophical about the matter.

“I’ll miss the rest of the year – I’m disappointed of course, but I’m still at training every night and never miss a game, I try to be an important member of the squad.

“That’s the thing about us, and it’s something I said to the lads at the start of the year – it doesn’t matter whether you’re on the starting 15, whether you’re on the subs bench, or whether you’re not togged out but are at training, it’s a squad team, and everyone’s there to back each other through thick and thin, so I’ll try to be the number one supporter on the sidelines this weekend.”

Eleven years ago, Marlow started on the Eskra team that marched on after winning the Tyrone Intermediate Championship, reaching the provincial showdown where they produced a valiant effort but lost out to Monaghan side Truagh Gaels.

He’s not the only member of that team still lining out for the Emmetts, but others have retired. They finished a credible fifth in Division Three, but they’d like to be operating at a higher level and Marlow is optimistic as there are good young players starting to establish themselves at adult level.

Niall said: “Over the years you lose important players, unfortunately none of us are getting younger and lads move on for different reasons and that’s understandable.

“It’s just something you have to deal with, especially at small clubs like ourselves, but we’re very lucky that in recent years we’re starting to see the emergency of all the good work that goes on in the club at youth perspective, you’re seeing a number of different lads coming through. Luke Kelly and Conor Hackett are mainstays in the team already, and you’ve the likes of Darragh Maguire, Rory Kinsella and Cormac Hughes coming through as well.”

Eskra have been tasked with getting the better of Aghaloo in the first-half, a team that missed out on the Division Three title in a de facto league decider against Drumquin a few weeks back. Marlow is mindful they’re coming up against a wounded animal.

“I’m sure they’re hurting and we’ve experienced it ourselves, a few years ago we finished joint-top of the league and came second.

“Clogher pipped us in the very first league game of the year and lo and behold they beat us on the head-to-head.

“ We respect Aghaloo, they’re a very good team. They’ve a lot of attacking threat and they’re definitely worthy of our respect but we certainly wouldn’t fear them either.”