Cnoc Mhuire and St. Nathy's primed for shoot-out 

By John Harrington

If you’re anywhere in the vicinity of Ballinamore in Leitrim on Saturday afternoon and you have a couple of hours to kill, do yourself a favour and pop into Páirc Sheáin Uí Eislin to watch the Masita All-Ireland Post Primary Schools Senior ‘B’ Final between Cnoc Mhuire, Granard and St. Nathy’s, Ballaghaderreen.

It promises to be a serious contest between two teams studded with gifted young footballers who have played some sparkling attacking football to get there.

The quality of both teams was very apparent in their respective All-Ireland semi-final wins.

St. Nathy’s blitzed Munster champions Mount Saint Michael Rosscarbery by 3-18 to 0-11, while Cnoc Mhuire swept aside Ulster champions Aquinas Grammar School on the other side of the draw by 1-21 to 0-7.

It’s been an especially strong year for Mayo schools with seven of the eight Connacht finalists across the A, B, C, and D senior championships all hailing from the county, and this is the best crop that St. Nathy’s, a school with a great footballing pedigree, have produced in some time.

Dean Casey, who scored seven points for Roscommon in their 2025 Connacht Minor Final win over Mayo, is their main man in attack, but he’s ably assisted by Conor Moriarty and Ryan O’Sullivan who pose a serious threat in their inside line.

Their defence is anchored at centre-back by Declan Duffy who performed the same role for the Mayo minors last year while Oran Frain and Sean Buckley are a serious double act in the middle of the pitch.

The inclination might be to make a Mayo school favourite in an All-Ireland Final against a Longford school, but Cnoc Mhuire are a serious outfit themselves with five players in their ranks who won a Leinster minor championship with Longford two years ago.

They also have a couple of talented young Cavan players in their team, most notably their outstanding midfielder Odhran Madden, so the Longford school certainly won’t lack for confidence themselves coming into the game.

“We don't see ourselves as being inferior as footballers to any other county in the area,” confirmed Cnoc Mhuire manager, John Coyle.

“Longford and Cavan are sometimes seen as the also runs or weaker when it comes to producing underage players. But we would have the belief that the players in this region in particular in South Cavan and in North Longford are as good as anywhere else in the country.

“It might be a bit of a cliche to say that we play with a chip in our shoulder, that we believe that everyone else around us feels they're superior, but we certainly don't have an inferiority complex about our ability.

“We don't fear any of the teams that we play, but we try to give them as much respect as they deserve, so we're aware of how good that St. Nathy's team are.

“We would have looked at Roscarberry and realised that Roscarberry are actually quite a physically strong team with some players who have played underage for Cork and it's not that easy to get on a Cork underage team. And Nathy's in the last 15 minutes of the game just blew them away.

“Their forward line, their inside forward line in particular is very dangerous.”

So too is Cnoc Mhuire’s inside forward line of Cian O’Donnell, Ben Blessington, and Brendan Martin Burns, who have scored a combined total of 3-19 from play over the course of their team’s last two matches.

The trio hail from the St. Mary’s, Granard club so have been playing with one another all their lives and have built up a level of understanding that makes them hugely difficult to play against for opposition defences if they get a decent supply of ball.

Considering the firepower that both teams possess, the battle for possession in the middle third will be crucial with the duel between Cnoc Mhuire midfielders Madden and Dylan Ledwith and Buckley and Frain of St. Nathy’s likely to be a fiercely contested one.

The big variable then will be how the respective teams will handle the unique occasion of playing in an All-Ireland Final.

“I suppose it's a fine line between enjoying the moment and living in the moment, but also realising that these moments don't come very often so you have to grasp the opportunity when it comes around,” says Coyle.

“I don't think Nathy's will be looking at the opportunity any different than us, but it's going to be a titanic battle.

“We're fully aware of how good these guys are, we're fully aware of how tough this game is going to be.”

Saturday, March 14

Masita All-Ireland Post Primary Schools Senior ‘B’ (Paddy Drummond Cup) Final

St. Nathy’s, Ballaghaderreen v Cnoc Mhuire, Granard, Páirc Sheáin Uí Eislin, Ballinamore, 2.30pm