Slaughtneil hope sun shines on bid for back-to-back All-Ireland titles
SLAUGHTNEIL may have had to exercise patience but they will get their opportunity today to make it back-to-back All-Ireland camogie titles when they face Sarsfields (Galway) at Clones (3.30pm).
The match has been postponed twice because of adverse weather but even the fact that it has now been taken out of Croke Park won’t diminish the Slaughtneil zest for more success.
The Derry and Ulster champions are primed for battle once again with joint captain Aoife Ni Chaiside revealing that the side is more fired up than ever.
“It will be great to get into action and to maybe retain our trophy. That’s our aim,” Chaiside asserts.
Her sisters, Brona and Eilis, along with Louise Dougan, Tina Hannon, Therese Mellon and Siobhan McKaigue, lend an experienced edge to the side against a Sarsfields outfit that will be particularly keen to make up for last year’s final defeat.
Meanwhile, Antrim aim to make up ground in Division Two Section One of the Littlewoods Ireland National Camogie League tomorrow when they take on Carlow at Ahoghill (2.00pm).
The Saffrons have beaten Wexford, drawn with Westmeath and lost to Cork to date and cannot afford to lose any more ground in the top half of the table.
The Antrim side is a mix of youth and experience and in Katie McAleese, Aileen McManus, Colleen Patterson, Orlagh O’Hara and Siobhan McKillop they have players who are capable of fashioning victory.
Also in Section One, Down face an uphill task against a Cork side that remain undefeated after three games, while in Division Two Section Two, Derry will confront a Dublin side that is very much in the race for honours.
Meanwhile, Derry and Armagh will meet in a Division 2B Allianz Hurling League relegation shoot-out at Ballyshannon today (3.00pm) with each hoping to avoid the drop to Division Three.
WHATEVER way you study the figures, the rise of Lee Brennan and the Tyrone attack has been one of the stories of this year’s league campaign.
This weekend in Omagh holds a little more than academic interest. While it is true that neither Tyrone nor Kerry will be going down or making a league final, it pits the most talked-about minor in Gaelic football against a 21-year-old who has been carefully nurtured out of the public eye until this February.
One, of course, is Kerry’s David Clifford. The other is Lee Brennan, who has become in no time at all Tyrone’s most lethal forward and the leading scorer in Division One of the National League, with a 2-25 tally, 0-20 of it from frees.
The 21-year-old Trillick man has long been talked about in his county as a serious talent. He was a mere schoolboy in St Michael’s Enniskillen when he was an essential figure in the team that won the All-Ireland Under-21 title in 2015.
While at school, he joined no less a figure than Tony McEntee as the only footballers with three Ulster School’s All-Stars.
His figures are off the charts. In 2015, he took the Patsy Forbes Cup for leading scorer in the Tyrone Senior Championship when Trillick ended a 29-year gap without a title with 2-27.
In 2016, he was one point off being top scorer in the Tyrone league, but last year he took the honours, thanks in no small part to his astonishing 3-14 in a league game against Strabane that was widely circulated on the internet.
“Suffice to say, the man is as natural a footballer as you will see,” is the assessment of former Tyrone captain Feargal Logan, who managed Brennan to that 2015 Under-21 All-Ireland.
“He is a clinical finisher and his ability to finish goals is up there with the best I have seen — Peter (Canavan), even Maurice Fitzgerald and these guys, wee Lee can finish up there with any of them.
“Mark Bradley is not dissimilar in my view. But Lee is particularly lethal, would be the phrase for Lee in around the net.
“He is never flummoxed for time, he picks his spot every time and he will put it in that spot. It is literally that easy for him.”
Those qualities were showcased in last week’s whipping of Mayo in Castlebar. Brennan collected 1-3 and his goal was a thing of beauty. Cathal McShane played a ball to Brennan as he was running across goal but, instead of taking a point off his left, he dummied his way past Ger Cafferkey, burned his way to David Clarke’s goal and thumped it to the top corner.
“I have seen him score all sorts of goals in training and in matches and he is a sight to behold,” adds Logan.
“He has a great set of dummies. And balance. As (Brian) Dooher would say, he is built from the ground up so he is not easy dislodged. He is a genuine real piece of work, a high-end inside forward.”
Given his progression, it has been a source of wonder for many in the county around Mickey Harte’s reluctance to put him in.
In the 2016 Championship, he was merely 19 and played no part, getting just three minutes in the league.
After they were beaten by Mayo in that year’s All-Ireland quarter-final, Harte identified finishing as the team’s major weakness in challenging for Sam Maguire.
With that in mind, he showed remarkable restraint to hold