FLYING FLAG COUNTY..

Fermanagh rivals on show at National Stadium.. but Bessbrook fiasco has taken wind out of both clubs’ sails

MICHAEL KERR admits he’ll have a job on his hands getting his players fired up for the fonacab Junior Cup final against Tummery Athletic with his club back in by default.

The newly-crowned Fermanagh & Western champions are going for three in a row in Junior football’s biggest competition, but the Enniskillen Rangers chief says it almost doesn’t feel right with his club the beneficiaries of Bessbrook’s misfortune after the Carnbane League men were expelled over a registration issue, pending an appeal to be heard tomorrow night.

Kerr’s club did not make the complaint and have nothing to do with the matter, the investigation was launched unilaterally at the behest of the Irish FA.

But with the Junior committee clearing Bessbrook not once but twice, before it was referred on up the chain of command where the decision was overruled, Kerr reckons the controversy and circumstances surrounding their participation in the final, should they survive tomorrow’s night hearing that is, have conspired to create a strange atmosphere around the fixture.

“It feels not too great to be honest, it’s been a long, drawn-out process and there’s a totally different feeling around the club since we found out on Thursday that we are back in it,” explained Kerr.

“There’s been a lot of talk on social media and things but we didn’t make the complaint and from our point of view, we lost the semi-final and yes, it’s nice to be back in the final but there’s a totally different feeling around it and I don’t know how I feel about it to be honest.

“But the fact of the matter is that if we play in that game on Saturday, any team that I put out on the pitch will be going to win the game, that’s the bottom line.

“We didn’t look to be there but we are there now and if we go to Windsor Park on Saturday, it’ll be nice to go and try and do three in a row because it’s a fantastic game to be a part of.

“But like I say, there’s a totally different feeling around the final this time, there’s not the same buzz.”

Enniskillen Rangers clinched back-toback top flight titles in the Fermanagh & Western on Saturday, holding off the challenge of none other than Tummery to get their hands on the trophy.

In three meetings with the Co

Tyrone men this season, two have been draws with the Gers winning the other, so Kerr (right) is predicting another close encounter.

“Believe it or not, it’s going to be tough getting the players up for the game this weekend,” he said.

“But when we get up to Windsor

Park, everything about the place is fantastic, it’s a great occasion so we’ll be going to win it.

“It was a fantastic achievement winning the league backto-back, at the start of the year that was our target.

“I was very proud of the boys and if this is to be our last game of the 2018/19 season on Saturday, it would be a nice way to go out by trying to win the Junior Cup to make it three on the trot.

“But Tummery are a very good side, they have some really good individual players, but Gerry Love took them over and turned them into a really good team and a solid team.

“There are goals in that team and they are very strong defensively, very much like ourselves, so it’s going to be a really tough battle to be honest.”

GERRY LOVE couldn’t conceal his contempt at how the Irish FA have handled the row which has seen Tummery Athletic’s league rivals Enniskillen Rangers reinstated in the Junior Cup.

The top two in the Fermanagh & Western’s Division One will slug it out in the postponed final this weekend, subject to an appeal by Bessbrook which will be heard tomorrow night.

The Carnbane League men had beaten the holders Rangers in the semifinal, but a registration issue arose around their fielding of Declan Monaghan which eventually, at a third hearing after the original two reviews had ruled there was no case to answer, saw them removed from the competition.

Love has no issue with Rangers – it was the IFA who instigated the review after all, not Michael Kerr’s club – but says the whole saga has been a mess and a wholly unsatisfactory build-up to what should be the biggest occasion in the Junior football calendar.

“From a Tummery point of view, the level of communication forthcoming from the IFA in relation to this has been shocking, absolutely shocking,” rapped Love.

“We’re led to believe Enniskillen Rangers were beaten on merit in the semi-final and it’s been a very frustrating six weeks for us because first of all, we beat Willowbank and were on a high.

“So I went and watched the Mid Ulster Shield with Bessbrook in it only for it all to be thrown up in the air.”

To add insult to injury, Love feels the IFA indirectly derailed their league campaign after they lost out narrowly to Rangers in the race for the title.

“We had to play five matches in nine games because we were working to this deadline of the 6th of May [the original date for the final], we suffered injuries and I believe the tight schedule scuppered our chances in the league,” he said.

“And besides that, a lot of people had plans made for the final, it was all about the 6th of May, a Bank Holiday, it was a day out, our first time ever in the Junior Cup, and the IFA need to hold their hands up in relation to what they have done here.”

That said, while Love admits he wonders what forces were at work to make the football authorities take a third look at an issue which had appeared to have been resolved twice at Junior committee level, he recognises that his club must now get on with the task in hand and beat whichever team is put in front of them in the final at the National Stadium.

And he knows that it could still turn out to be the most “momentous” occasion in Tummery Athletic’s history.

“This is the third time it’s been looked at, this is unprecedented and we ask ourselves why has there been all this interference,” he said.

“My whole focus was on Bessbrook and then I’m told last week it’s Enniskillen Rangers and I haven’t had time to prepare.

“But it will still be a momentous occasion for the club, the first time we have made it here, and it is a trophy we have got to be very focused on and hopefully, it’s there for the taking.

“But Enniskillen Rangers are a good side, they’ve won this the last two years and they have won our league last year and again this year, so they will go into the game, if they are there, as favourites.

“But I do think if we play to the same level we did against Willowbank, we’ll not be far away.”