By Michael McMullan

MAGHERAFELT will be boosted by the return of Derry defender Eoin McEvoy for Saturday’s Derry SFC semi-final showdown with Newbridge.

McEvoy, a nominee for Young Player of the Year, missed Sunday’s win over Dungiven due to his AFL trials down under.

Magherafelt were 2-6 to 0-7 winners thanks to goals from Declan Martin and Shane Heavron. They also needed a full-length save from goalkeeper Karl Campbell when the game was in the mix.

Derry duo Conor McCluskey and Odhrán Lynch were also missing and unlikely to feature in the Derry campaign.

Should Magherafelt navigate their way back to the decider, it will take place on Sunday, October 27. Champions Glen were drawn to play Sleacht Néill in Sunday’s other semi-final.

Speaking after the game, Rossa joint manager Brian McGuckin confirmed McCluskey and Lynch are out with “long term” injuries. Neither were part of the matchday squad.

“Eoin McEvoy is back tomorrow (Monday)…thank God,” McGuckin told Gaelic Life. “He’s going to be a massive addition to us obviously because he’s a huge figure in the club.”

With Conor Doherty’s impressive showing as Newbridge beat Bellaghy, McEvoy could well be paired up against his Derry teammate this weekend.

Magherafelt were 1-5 to 0-3 up at half-time, goal a deft finish from Shane Heavron. After the break, they only mustered a single point – from Danny Heavron – until Martin’s late clinching goal.

“I felt that we that we played well in the first half…we were very controlled but wouldn’t have been overly happy with the scoreboard at half-time,” said McGuckin of his Sunday’s win.

“We knew exactly what Dungiven were going to throw at us in the second half. We tried our best to defend against it and get a couple of scores at the other end but we genuinely struggled.”

McGuckin, who is joint manager alongside Richard Thornton, admitted that had Dungiven been more polished up in front of the posts, it could’ve been a different result.

Aside from missing frees and point chances, they had a goal denied by Campbell’s save with lively forward Jack McGroarty also blasting over from close range.

All-Ireland minor winning goalkeeper Campbell got the nod ahead of Conor McLarnon between the posts in the absence of Lynch.

“Conor had been out there for eight weeks injured and he’d been back a couple of weeks,” McGuckin added. “Karl had got a few games behind him and it was a toss of a coin to tell you the truth.

“Karl went in there and I thought he was very, very good. He pulled off a great save when a goal would really have put the game in the melting pot.

“We said it all week…the aim of today was to come up and win the game. We’re not happy about our performance, nowhere near it, but we are happy to be in a semi-final.

“We had watched quite a bit of Dungiven and I’ve been highly impressed with them. Pickles (James McNicholl) has been in now a year and a half and he’s done an excellent job with them (as manager).

“We knew it was going to be a real battle today and our county men are a huge miss to us but the players we had coming in are more than capable of playing at this level and they proved that tonight as well.”

Check out our latest Gaelic Lives pod as we look at the championship weekend across Ulster.