Junior Championship gets underway on Saturday

FOUR teams who have plied their trade in Division 3B this season are afforded the honour of kick-starting the two month jamboree of club knockout action in Tyrone when a double header of preliminary round ties are held in the Junior Championship this Saturday afternoon in Augher.

The meeting of Derrytresk and Donaghmore IIIs on paper looks fairly straightforward to call with the former having won the Div 3B title, losing just one of their eighteen league matches in the process, while in marked contrast their opponents this Saturday propped up the table come the finish up.

However the second game on the Hackett Park double bill looks a lot harder to call as Tattyreagh lock horns with Brackaville.

Lady luck hasn’t been kind in the draw to the Owen Roes who have now been handed a preliminary round contest in the Junior grade three years running, but last year they underlined their threat when shocking Augher in Killeeshil in the opener.

Certainly Tatts skipper Eoin McGinn insists that the St Patrick’s are taking nothing for granted as they prepare for their third meeting of the season with the Brack boys. With the scoreline at the moment sitting at one win each, he insists that this latest instalment will likely come down to the wire.

“ The two games we had with Brackaville in the league were really contrasting. The first was early in the season at our place and we won handy enough but later in the year we went up there and they beat us and deserved to.

“ Anytime you play Brackaville you know you are in a game. Nothing is given to you easily and we expect that again at the weekend. It is going to come down to fine margins.”

Tattyreagh finished up in an encouraging second spot in Division 3B, under the management of Pearse and Sean Darcy, but wing half forward McGinn still reflected back ruefully on their campaign.

“ It was a funny sort of season. Overall we didn’t really achieve what we wanted because we certainly thought we were capable of winning that league.

“ Injuries and players being away at times was definitely a factor. I myself got married and missed five weeks, so there was different things where we never fielded at full strength.

“ But we are coming into the Championship now in fine shape hopefully. No disrespect to the Tyrone League which is always competitive but we make no bones about the fact that the Championship is what it is all about. I know we have a league promotion playoff down the line but this Saturday’s match with Brackaville is the make or break of our season.”

The Tatts were involved in the match of the season in Division 3B when losing a high scoring thriller at home to eventual champions Derrytresk. It demonstrated their potential when things click on the day but Eoin concedes that Derrytresk emerged the class of the field in that league.

“ A lot of neutrals spoke glowingly about the standard of that match but it was also our most frustrating game of the season as we felt we should have won it

“ A bit of naivety probably cost us though fair play to Derrytresk who came back and bossed it and in the end they were deserving champions.”