O'Callaghan aiming to scoop another Ulster title

St. Aidan’s High School, Derrylin football manager Richie O’Callaghan will lead out the school to an Ulster final for a second time this year following their success back in January in the McCormack Cup.

After 51 years without a boys final appearance inUlster competitions, the school made the most of their opportunity at the beginning of the year with a 0-09 to 0-06 win over Coláiste Feirste of Belfast.

St. Aidan’s booked their place in this year’s McEvoy Cup final with a 5-10 to 2-10 win over Rosses CS, Dungloe earlier this month with three second-half goals guiding them to victory after being level at halftime.

“It’s been kind of a trait of ours, we’ve been a second-half team, we have good fitness, a lot of these boys have been on the go from October with the team that did well earlier in the year,” O’Callaghan said.

“But yeah the goal threat is there and it’s kind of been a pattern. We’ve hunted goals in the second half, especially the first five or 10 minutes of the second half but it’s been good.”

Despite not openly talking about it with his players at the beginning of the year, the Enniskillen Gaels man revealed he had a win in the competition in mind from the jump.

“It would have been for me personally. I’ve never really shared it with the lads to tell you the truth,” he added.

“There would have been a lot of lads coming off the back of that McCormack Cup panel at the start of the year, but it would have been a target of mine. I never really mentioned it and they never really mentioned it at the time.

"We were beat in the first round, that kind of gave us a bit of a push in the right direction, the boys realised that they had to work hard again but after that they’ve been going well, and the target has been that but it’s been one step at a time.”

St. Aidan’s will face Largy College of Clones on Thursday and will be expecting a tough game having faced them already once this year.

“We know the way they’ll play and the kind of players they have, they might be similar to us and they know a bit about us also so there’s no secrets that way, they’ll have a good style of football,” the St. Aidan’s teacher continued.

“We know they have good players from the start of the year in that first game, but they have a good style of football and go about it in the right way so it should make for a good match.”

The school's success has been hugely supported by the community and the GAA clubs neighbouring Derrylin with the team featuring players from Kinawley, Teemore and of course the O’Connells.

“The school was without this sort of achievement for a long time getting to an Ulster final,” O’Callaghan continued.

“This team has been to a couple of semi-finals but you never really remember those as such. Getting to two finals in a year is a massive thing for the community, for the school, for the clubs as well, for the feeder club it’s absolutely massive.

"There’s been great support there too. When we beat Rosses the first two messages I got were from Teemore and Kinawley managers asking when the final was because they knew they would have to re-arrange U16 games and they were straight on board with it and they know the importance of it too which is great.”