Tempo play down chances

Tempo’s Daryl Keenan

Senior football championship semi-final
Tempo Maguires v Erne Gaels
Sunday, Brewster Park, 7.30pm

TEMPO manager John McElroy has said that he will take little notice of those who are tipping them for this year’s senior crown.

With reigning champions Roslea dumped out by Derrygonnelly in the preliminary round, many feel that the Maguires are best placed to lift the New York Cup for the first time since 1973, but McElroy has questioned where that train of thought has come from.

“What makes us favourites against Erne Gaels?,” he said. “We’ve been tipped to win the whole thing, but I don’t know why. I would take little notice of it.

“Look at the league table in Fermanagh from top to bottom, it explains why it’s hard to pick out favourites.
“It’s very tight, nobody is pushing on and nobody is dropping off.”

And McElroy is expecting a tight semi-final encounter against an Erne Gaels side that collected two wins last weekend, including one against Sunday’s opponents.

“They won two games there and beat us as well,” he said. “We’ve been managing to get our scores easy enough, but it is going to be a tight match.”

Unfortunately for McElroy, any chance of going under the radar was ended when they had a massive 12 points to spare over the Harps in the last round, the Derrygonnelly outfit giving the impression of having emptied the tank in dethroning Roslea.

Daryl Keenan showed his worth with nine points from frees in the 1-14 to 0-5 win, and he is available as the red card picked up in that match was for two yellow card offences.

The full story is in the current issue of Gaelic Life, published on Thursday September 6. Buy your copy now in your local newsagent, or you can purchase the online version – for only 90p – by clicking here