McAliskey and Clonoe out to upset the applecart

WHEN you look at the final Division One league table after the regular season Errigal Ciaran and Clonoe are poles apart but that will count for nothing once the ball is thrown in at O’Neill Park in Dungannon on Sunday evening.

Errigal will go in as warm favourites but one thing is for sure you can be guaranteed that any Rahillys side that take the field in Championship football will have no inferiority complex.

They go into this game on the back of a narrow victory over old rivals Coalisland in the previous round and that first win in the Championship over their neighbours since the 1991 final was a long time coming, according to former Tyrone star Connor McAliskey.

“ We were due one to be honest but I felt that we made hard work of it,” he admitted.

“ We looked to be in control of things when we were five or six points up but then we gave away a sloppy goal and that got them right back into the game. From there until the final whistle it was nip and tuck and we were just glad to get over the line against them.

“ They had a few men missing but I’m sure they felt that they still had enough to get over us and we had the same belief that we could win. Some of our performances in the league have been disappointing but we feel that we are better than that and in the last few weeks we have been fully focussed on the Championship, nothing else.”

When these two sides met in the league at O’Rahilly Park there was little between the sides going into the closing stages before Errigal Ciaran’s bench proved to be the difference and McAliskey is determined that they will push their opponents all the way.

“ In the league against them they had a man sent off and we went two points up but then they were able to take a player of the calibre of Petey Harte off the bench and that turned the game in their favour,” said Connor.

“That’s the challenge that we face against them in the quarter final but we will prepare well for it. We will go back to the drawing board and see what we did well against Coalisland and see the things that we have to improve on.

“ We won’t be going into the game just to make up the numbers, it’s a sudden death championship game and anything can happen on any given day. The Tyrone Championship is so special and so hard to predict as you saw with some of the first round results.

“ In the Championship you have to put your best foot forward every day you go out and we will do our homework on them. We will be doing our best to really test Errigal Ciaran and while we will be outsiders you see shocks in the Championship all the time.”

McAliskey felt that there would be little point Clonoe turning up if they weren’t bullish about their prospects of upsetting the applecart.

“ We may have finished in the lower half of the Division One table but that will have no bearing on this game. We will respect them but we won’t fear them. We have a full strength squad to pick from and we have strength in depth on the bench and that will be needed but we fully intend to go out and give it our best shot.”