Holy Trinity Bid To Retain Title

Friday 12.04.2013

Club

A cracking All Ireland U18 Vocational Schools Final is on the cards at Croke Park on Saturday afternoon when two sides who know what it takes to win National titles go head to head.

Holy Trinity, Cookstown are the holders and will start the game as slight favourites but they will have to be at their best to account for a Cnoc Mhuire, Granard side who won back to back All Ireland U16 titles in 2011 and 2012. Twelve months ago the Tyrone lads relieved Gallen, Ferbane of the All Ireland title with a top class display at headquarters and now they are on their guard that the same thing doesn’t happen them this weekend.

After winning a third Markey Cup title in a row they comfortably got the better of Davitt College, Castlebar in the All Ireland semi final but joint manager Adrian O’Donnell feels that they will have to improve if they are to take the silverware back up the road with them again.

“We have been slow to start in our last three games and that is something that we have been working on as there is no doubt we can’t afford to do that this weekend against Cnoc Mhuire,” admits Adrian.

“Its great to be back in an All Ireland final for the second year in a row but it will only be a good day if we win it again. Myself and Peter have managed most of these lads the whole way up through their school careers and they have always given us everything on the training pitch as well as on match days and for some of them this will be their last ever game in a Holy Trinity jersey and hopefully they can go out on a high.

We are going into this game blind so to speak as we know nothing about their opponents other than the fact that they have won back to back All Irelands. We are only focusing on our own game and trying to get the balance right and if the boys go out and play the football that they are capable off then they won’t be far away.”

Holy Trinity have six players on board who featured in their title win twelve months ago while a number of them have faced Cnoc Mhuire before. Conor Quinn, Darren Devlin, Daryl Magee, Macaulay Quinn and Cathaoir Quinn were all on the St.Joseph’s Coalisland side who lost out by the minimum margin in the All Ireland semi final to the Longford lads two years ago and they will be aiming for revenge here.

Dwayne McKenna, Darren Devlin, Kevin Coney and Eoin Coyle will give little away at the back, team captain Kieran McGeary has a key role to play in midfield while up front Magee, David Mulgrew and James McGahan will aim to make the most of any chances that come their way, the latter going for his second All Ireland medal this year having played on the Cookstown side that won Intermediate club honours.

Cnoc Mhuire had to pull out all the stops to beat Clonakilty Community College by the minimum margin in their semi final. They will look for big displays from Diarmuid Fitzsimons, Liam Sullivan David McGivney, Aidan McElligott, Nigel Rabbitte and Rian Brady but Holy Trinity are taken to retain their crown.