By Niall McCoy

CASTLEBLAYNEY and Truagh Gaels will start their 2021 Senior Championship campaigns this weekend as the action starts to heat up in the group stages.

The Faughs will have home advantage on Saturday evening (6pm) against a Latton side that recorded a fine 3-13 to 1-11 win over Monaghan Harps last weekend.

Latton will be hoping to learn their lessons from last year when the group stages were introduced for the first time. After a fine opening-day win over this weekend’s opposition, they would lose three games on the bounce and finished outside the knockout spots.

They looked sharp against the Harps with Owen Duffy’s late first-half goal and a follow up point from Christopher Rice giving them a 1-9 to 0-5 half-time lead.

The Harps responded well with the opening four points of the second half but further goals from Aaron Mulligan and Shane Slevin sealed the deal.

Castleblayney enter the match on the back of a win following a comfortable victory over the Harps in their last league game, while they also drew with Latton the week before – so this should be a close battle.

In Group One, Truagh start with a derby battle against holders Scotstown on Sunday at 5pm.

It’s a repeat of their opening fixture last season – although Scotstown had home advantage that time – when Truagh gave the eventual champions a real scare before losing out 0-17 to 1-12.

They’ll feel that they can cause problems once again after a free-scoring league campaign. Across four games the side hit 11 goals in all with Colm McRory and Odhran McElligott in fine goal-scoring form in particular while James Sheem and county man Gary Mohan also raised green flags.

Scotstown had little bother in their opening game as they defeated Magheracloone 3-17 to 2-10 at Pairc Mhuire.

Much of that owed to a lightning start from Shane Carey who posted 1-3 in the early stages, although their lead was just three points at the switch around. However, a second Carey goal from a penalty and a late Matthew Maguire three-pointer sealed the deal for the holders.

Magheracloone will try to bounce back when they host Carrickmacross in the other Group One match on Sunday afternoon (2pm).

Ryan Farrelly and Daniel McCahey scored their goals against Scotstown but they were too reliant on Alan McCahey’s free-taking for scores.

Carrick are also in need of a win following their 0-14 to 0-8 loss to Inniskeen. Scoring has been a bit of an issue for the side this season as they posted 1-8 and 1-9 in two of their three games (they conceded their fixture with Magheracloone while they also put up a big tally against the Grattans).

The final game this weekend will see Monaghan Harps host Ballybay on Sunday (2pm).

The Harps went down to Latton in round one while Ballybay held off a Clontibret fightback to start with a win. Jerome Johnston’s side led by five points as the clock ticked into additional time. While the concession of 1-1 caused a sweat, they were able to hold on.