Denn seek a return to senior ranks

IFC final preview

In many ways, Denn have been the story of this championship, in all three grades. The Crosskeys-based side were superb in sweeping to the Ulster junior title two years ago and were highly regarded but few saw them making the Intermediate decider this year.

They have, however, played exceptional football and really marked themselves out as a team very much on the up. Key to that has been attacker Thomas Edward Donohoe, the vice-captain of the team (Bernard Gaffney is the captain), who has scored 0-32 in the championship to date.

The former St Patrick’s College star has enjoyed every moment of this run.

“It has been brilliant this year. I think last year probably wasn’t the best year, we got to a quarter-final but met Ballyhaise in that game and lost. But I think we got a lot of experience from it and from the year prior to that, winning Ulster,” the 25-year-old Dublin-based accountant said this week.

“I think we have been in a good place this year and have been able to grow throughout the championship and got confidence as it went on and now we’re in the final and looking forward to it.

“A lot of people in the county outside of our group probably don’t expect us to do too much but Ballyhaise are a very strong outfit, probably a senior team playing intermediate but look, we’ll give it a good rattle and hopefully it will be enough.”

Denn have been building up steam since the outset.

“I think we are. We got through the group stage, lost to Butlersbridge but we kind of came into our own in the knock-out stages, we got momentum and momentum is a massive thing, and people came into form and we sort of haven’t really looked back.

“We beat Cootehill, we probably weren’t even expected to beat them, that was a big relief and then we went into the Shercock game full of confidence and we beat them convincingly enough probably in the end. That has left us in a big game now against Ballyhaise.”

While Denn have played in plenty of finals in recent years, Donohoe admits there will be some nerves when they take on Ballyhaise. The panel and management set high standards, he stressed.

“I’d say there will be nerves because in our group, we all expect an awful lot of ourselves. We have a good age profile, everybody is around the 24, 25 age bracket so we are a good age. We are probably a young team but given that we went ion a bit of a run two years ago and we have a few different players who were on Cavan underage teams and two boys who were on the Cavan senior panel last year, while we are young, we are quite experienced.

“But yeah, we definitely will be nervous going into the final just because we expect an awful lot of ourselves – and we want to win it. You’re obviously going to be nervous going into it.”

When ‘Ted’ started playing senior football with Denn, they were still a solid senior side but they tumbled down the ranks quickly before starting to ascend again.

“When I started playing senior football, it was in the Senior Championship and we worked the whole way down. It would be great to get Denn back up to the Senior Championship, where they kind of belong.

“When I started, we stayed safe the first year, then we were relegated the next year, then another relegation. There are a lot of boys who would be mad to see us back up in the SC, that has to be our goal going into next weekend but it’s not going to be easy against Ballyhaise.

“They are going to be strong favourites but we’ll give it our best shot and see what happens.”

Asked if it is ideal to be coming in as underdogs without any burden of pressure, Donohoe stated: “We’ll put the pressure on ourselves because we expect an awful lot of ourselves. There’s pressure to go out and perform on the big day in the Intermediate final and pressure from our own community because you want to try and do well for them. We’re looking forward to it and hopefully we’ll come out on the right side of it.”

The left-footed free-taker has amassed quite a collection of medals, including MacRory, Sigerson and Ulster SFC and, after a year out, he confirmed that he is going back into the Cavan senior panel now with the hope of adding more.

“I got a phone call from Ray a few weeks ago and I said I’d go back. I’ll be looking forward to that after next weekend. Hopefully we’ll not have to worry about Cavan for a while if we can get over the line next weekend.

“I loved it (playing with Cavan). It was great to be a part of it, especially when you have successful times, winning an Ulster Championship, it’s very hard not to enjoy it.

“I took a break last year, I was frustrated near the end on my own part because I kept getting knocks, kept getting injuries so I just took the year out to try and get my body right.

“Hopefully I’ll be in a better place to get a better run at it this year.”