“We've not won anything yet” - Craigbane manager Kevin Moore

2024 Ulster GAA Football Junior Club Championship Semi-final - Craigbane vs. Drumhowan

Craigbane manager Kevin Moore has spent the past two weeks reminding his players that nothing is won yet ahead of their Ulster Junior semi-final against Monaghan champions Drumhowan this weekend.

While there was an obvious satisfaction at reversing the narrow defeat against eventual Ulster finalists Drumlane two years ago and the significance of the result, Moore’s thoughts immediately turned to the fork in the road.

“We've not won anything yet and it's just getting these boys' feet back down on the ground now,” he said in the minutes after their 1-10 to 1-7 victory.

“We knew it was going to be a tough battle. They had played a lot of football in Division One this year in Cavan. We watched them, we did our homework on them and we knew we could do it.”

Moore was happy with how his team “stood up”, especially after defender David Lowry joined Naoise Ó Mianáin and Cahir O’Kane on the injured list since their win over Killeeshil.

“We knew we had boys to come in,” he said. “Eoin Coll was excellent today. Fintan Lynch and Oisin O'Donnell and our half backline.

“They're a first division team but we class ourselves as an intermediate team so this is no shock to us coming up here. We had the experience of it a couple of years ago and it's just brilliant for the boys to get over the line.”

Moore pointed to the pressure his defence put on Knockbride’s shots to force wides. They were happy with their marking arrangements and felt they had the tools to hurt the Cavan side going the other way.

“We knew their hard work wouldn't have come to the same level as ours and it showed in the first half with the number of turnovers,” he added.

Craigbane were 0-6 to 0-1 up at half time before Knockbride’s period of control peeled the margin back to two points. There were shades of the game two years and a dwindling ago against Drumlane until Jude McLaughlin’s 48th minute goal pushed towards the finish line.

“I thought we should have been maybe ten points up at half-time,” Moore said, “and we knew one kick of the ball out in the net and they were back in it again. Thankfully we got the goal first, before theirs and everything just fell into place and we're out another day.”

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Craigbane will now place Drumhowan with Donegal champions Muff and Armagh aside Collegeland locking horns in the other semi-final.

It’s not something they’ve looked into until now. Having the Tyrone champion in the preliminary round was enough to sharpen the initial focus after winning the Derry title.

“We've looked at it (the draw) briefly but not in any detail but we have two weeks now to regroup,” Moore concluded.

Craigbane await the outcome of a scan on David Lowry’s knee injury. For Cahir O’Kane, it’s not an ACL injury giving him an outside chance of being available for a final should Craigbane advance from their next outing.