By Michael McMullan

A CONVEYOR belt. That’s the best superlative you could twin with the Sleacht Néill hurling story as they aim to make another championship step.

Padraig Dougan is a selector and coach under new manager Paul McCormack and a former championship winning manager himself before the Michael McShane era.

For the past five years, it’s been Sleacht Néill and Kevin Lynch’s in the final. On Sunday they lock horns in the semi-final. But the target is still the same. The group stage was about finishing top. Then there’s the glance to see who is coming next.

“We’re really looking at Kevin Lynch’s, exactly as if we were going on against them in a final,” Dougan said of Sunday.

“We’re treating our semi-final as that. The prep is exactly the same. We know we’re going to face a battle because it is Kevin Lynch’s.

“We’re under no illusions about that and that’s the way that has been looked at at training in the build-up to it.”

For the Emmet’s, they know what’s coming. Their end of the bargain is to match their opponents for intensity and hurling. It’s that simple.

Back to their conveyor belt. Of the 2013 winning team only Oisin O’Doherty, then a forward, his brother Cormac as a young impact sub, Sean Cassidy, Sé McGuigan, Gerald Bradley and Brendan Rogers will be in line for a start this weekend. Their breakthrough side was captained by current selector Gareth O’Kane.

Since then, it’s an example of drip-feeding youngsters into the equation. Minors Fionn McEldwney and Cahal McKaigue have came in. Conor Coyle, Ruairí Ó Mianáin, Peter McCullaugh, Jack Eamon and Shea Cassidy have become mainstays.

“It’s really important to look at your minors and try to keep evolving within the club and getting them some game time,” said Dougan, a championship winner as a player and manager.

“It is quite a step up from minor grade to senior grade. We’ve been trying to manage that particularly well over the course of the season and trying to get them integrated into that and get them some senior time.”

That’s the bonus, Dougan adds. Having a good batch coming into senior transformed their fortunes. Since then, it’s about blooding a couple of players here and there.

Even when the Emmet’s were dancing on the Ulster stage, they’d have a few minors tasting what senior training was like.

By the following year, the big stage wasn’t new and they could slot in.

“The system seems to work very well for us in being able to get two or three each year and they just seamlessly seem to come in to strengthen the panel for us,” added Dougan who pointed to the influence of their leaders, men like Rogers, Cormac O’Doherty and Shane McGuigan.

“They set the standard every night, even before training starts. They’re pucking balls about at training. They’re driving it on. Those young fellas are actually seeing, there’s the standard. If we want to be at this, this is where we’ve got to go to.”