O’Donnell insists that Errigal will be on their guard

ERRIGAL Ciaran joint-manager Adrian O’Donnell is acutely conscious that they will need to hit the ground running in Thursday evening’s Senior Championship curtain-raiser against Killyclogher under the lights at O’Neill’s Healy Park.

Errigal were thoroughly deserving champions in 2022 but it’s a shade under two decades since a team has last retained the O’Neill Cup, and they can’t afford to look past the challenge of an in-form St Mary’s who finished second in Division One this year.

O’Donnell, in his third year in the Errigal hotseat alongside Mark Harte, emphasised the competitiveness of the Tyrone Senior Championship, renowned nationally for its knock-out format and dog-eat-dog nature.

“As everyone knows it’s an extremely competitive Championship and if you’re not at the level you need to be, your Championship campaign will be over.

“Like all the teams entering the Championship this weekend, we are acutely aware of how competitive it is and that we’ll need to be on our game to progress.”

Opponents Killyclogher have lost only two matches all year and will be hoping to transfer their eye-catching league form into the Championship arena. It makes for an appetising clash against the Championship holders and O’Donnell knows that Errigal need to be at their very best if they’re to book their spot in the quarter-finals.

“Killyclogher are an impressive team, they’ve been very consistent in 2023, slightly more consistent than we have been, and have quality throughout their team. Everyone in our camp knows how difficult they will be to overcome and that’s the challenge we must succeed in if we’re to continue our Championship journey.”

Errigal had a strong finish to their Division One campaign and narrowly missed out on a place in the upcoming league semi-finals. The hope for O’Donnell and the rest of the team is that they’ve hit form at the opportune moment.

“We felt our league form was patchy at times. We picked up some very important points in the early stages of the league, and those points really stood to us and proved to be very important.

“There was a period in the middle where we did struggle and that was evident for everybody to see, but towards the end performances started to improve. We managed to get enough points to stay clear of trouble but unfortunately not enough to make the top four.”

On the personnel front half-back Cormac Quinn is recuperating from a hamstring tear while Niall Kelly has been sidelined due to a collarbone injury. O’Donnell says it’s effectively a matter of managing the situation.

“We do have injury problems but I suppose it’s the same with any team and it’s a matter of managing it as best we can. For us, we want and need the least amount of injury disruption possible to give us our best possible chance in this extremely tough Championship encounter against Killyclogher.”