Sigerson Weekend Preview
Sigerson Weekend Preview
Sigerson Weekend Preview
The most prestigious third level football competition on the calendar reaches its conclusion this weekend as four teams descend on Belfast for the finals weekend of the Irish Daily Mail HE GAA Sigerson Cup.
Queens are the hosts as NUI Maynooth, UCC, UCD and UUJ battle it out for the trophy. The two semi-finals take place on Friday (NUIM v UCC, UCD v UUJ), with the final taking place on Saturday evening at 6.45pm.
Apart from the compelling matches ahead at Queens, this weekend's Sigerson Festival is also significant as the GAA's new clock/hooter system will be used at the matches for the first time.
The Clock/Hooter system is due to be used in all Senior Football and Hurling (Liam MacCarthy level) Championship matches this summer but will be given a trial run in both the Irish Daily Mail Sigerson and Fitzgibbon Cup semi-finals and finals over the course of the next two weekends.
Friday, February 21
Irish Daily Mail HE GAA Sigerson Cup Semi-Final Previews
UCC v Maynooth, The Dub, Queens, 3.30pm
It's a measure of the quality of the Maynooth squad, with just one Sigerson Cup title to their name (albeit under the slightly different one of St Patrick's College), that they will go into their clash with 20-time champions and last year's runners-up UCC as many observers' favourites.
The north Kildare outfit secured their place at finals weekend with a scratchy 1-10 to 0-9 defeat of GMIT, with Paddy McBrearty firing 1-3 and Meath's Eamonn Wallace and Kildare man Paddy Brophy adding three points apiece from play.
That talented trio form just part of an all-star squad - Dublin midfielder Michael Darragh Macauley and his team-mate Eric Lowndes and Kildare duo Mark Donnellan and Paul Cribbin are also part of arguably the most intimidating panel left in the competition.
Prior to the defeat of a GMIT side that had knocked out hosts Queen's in the previous round, Maynooth had a comfortable 2-19 to 1-5 win over IT Blanchardstown. To underline the potency of their attack, Wallace (0-7), Brophy (0-3) and McBrearty (0-5) hit 15 points from play between them and could cause all sorts of problems for UCC today.
However, getting to grips with the rampant Macauley will probably be UCC's biggest challenge in Belfast, with the unenviable task falling to their inexperienced midfield pairing of Ian Maguire and David Nation.
However, Billy Morgan's side could well be the best equipped of the final four teams to put it up to Maynooth. In the semi-finals of the competition for the fifth year running, the Leesiders displayed all their virtues in a 1-13 to 1-5 defeat of CIT in the last round, when giant Tipperary full-forward Michael Quinlivan scored a match-winning 1-4. Quinlivan and Kerry pair Paul Geaney and Michael Cox complete a very strong full-forward line.
UCC are stacked with players at the heart of Brian Cuthbert's rebuilding job with the Cork senior football team, including Conor Dorman, Seán Kiely and Brian O'Driscoll. As always, they have a sprinkling of Kerry talent thrown in for good measure.
With the experience of playing in last year's final behind them, UCC are no strangers to the particular pressures of playing at the sharp end of the Sigerson Cup. With the wily Morgan guiding them, they have every chance of causing a mild shock and denying Maynooth a place in the final.
UCD v UUJ, The Dub, Queens, 5.30pm
In the second semi-final on Friday, two former winners of the tournament meet at the Dub - University College Dublin and the University of Ulster, Jordanstown.
UUJ don't have to look too far back for their last title - they won the Sigerson Cup in the 2007/2008 season, and before that in 2000/2001, so success in this competition is something they have enjoyed quite recently. UCD were once the standard bearers in the Sigerson Cup, but remarkably it is now 18 years since Fachtna Collins lifted their last title in 1996.
Neither of these two made it through to the finals weekend in 2013, so they will both be aiming to make the absolute most of their visit to Belfast.
UCD made it through to the last four after recording wins over Athlone IT and DCU. They defeated Athlone IT in Round 1 back on January 28, a hard-fought 0-17 to 2-7 victory, but it was their win over city rivals DCU in the last eight that really caught the eye.
They emerged from a real thriller against their storied opponents, surviving a massive fightback from DCU to win 3-11 to 3-10. UCD had led 2-9 to 1-1 at half-time, but a storming comeback from DCU after the interval almost caught out the Belfield boys.
UCD are managed by John Divilly, the centre-half-back on Galway's All-Ireland winning team of 1998. They have plenty of nationally known figures in their team - Jack McCaffrey, Paul Mannion (both Dublin) and John Heslin (Westmeath) are the stand-out names, but others such as Ryan Basquel and Mark Hughes have also impressed for them in their march to the semi-finals.
Their opponents UUJ have progressed to the weekend after wins over IT Sligo (1-15 to 0-11 in Round 1) and 2013 champions DIT (1-9 to 1-6 in the quarter-finals). Since the start of the competition, UUJ have looked like contenders, and knocking out the reigning champions has marked them out as arguably the team to beat this weekend.
A superb goal from Tyrone's Ronan O'Neill proved crucial in that victory, as it gave UUJ a seven-point lead at a vital stage in the second half. DIT fought back, but UUJ advanced comfortably enough in the end.
UUJ are managed by renowned Ballinderry Shamrocks clubman Adrian McGuckin, a man who has huge coaching experience, most notably at St. Pat's, Maghera. At UUJ, he has a veritable galaxy of inter-county talent to choose from, with some of the best footballers in the whole province of Ulster available to him.
Rory Beggan, 2013 All Star Colin Walshe, Kieran Hughes (all Monaghan), Chrissy McKaigue, Cailean O'Boyle (both Derry), Killian Clarke, Gearóid McKiernan (Cavan) Mattie Donnelly, Ronan O'Neill, Conor McAliskey (all Tyrone), Niall McKeever (Antrim) and Jamie Clarke (Armagh) are all part of what is a remarkably strong team at this level.
How many of those players see game time this weekend is not yet certain, but with such a list of elite level talent to choose from, it is clear that UUJ will be very hard to stop.
Previews by Arthur Sullivan and Brian Murphy
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