All last year, people all over the county would have told you that this wasn’t a good Bellaghy team.  That argument fell on itself when they were just seconds away from yet again claiming the biggest piece of silverware in Derry football.

By Cahair O’Kane                                                                                                                                                                                

sport@derrypost.com

In Bellaghy, being seconds away is just not enough though.  Being second is not enough.  There is a pride in the jersey and a sense of togetherness at the Wolfe Tones’ club that few other clubs in Ireland enjoy.  Add in 21 county titles, and you have a pretty successful structure.

But in reality, all that counts for not a whole lot when you step out on to the pitch.  And when Seamus Birt’s men take to the field at Dean McGlinchey Park to face Ballinderry on Friday night, they will be without a host of their top players as they seek to oust their rivals, as the Bellaghy boss explained.

“Joe Diver is suspended.  It’s obviously a big loss to us, you have a county midfielder there and you’d far rather have him on the pitch than in the dugout or outside the wire.  Ryan McNally was sent off for giving abuse to a referee a couple of weeks ago, those are two big suspensions. 

“Fergal Doherty’s a big doubt also at the minute, him, Gavin Diamond and Francis Glackin all have hamstring worries.  Michael McGoldrick’s away to England for a few days of intensive treatment but I’ll be happy if he even makes the bench.  Conan Brown’s a doubt as well, and Eoghan Brown has fallen arches in his feet.  He’s been playing with the pain this last month, playing when he shouldn’t have been but we were that stretched that I couldn’t even rest the lad.

“Of the six starting defenders from last year’s county final, we’re missing four of them.  One is away in Australia, Ciaran McNally’s retired and Manus and Michael are injured.  We’d like to be going out with our six best defenders against Ballinderry because almost their full front six are all county players.”
So there can be no case put forward that Bellaghy are whinging because they have a few boys with niggly injuries.  While Diver and McNally may only have themselves to blame, there is no denying that they have been struck by a horrible glut of injuries that threatens to wreck their hopes.

Birt admits that there will be a few unfamiliar faces in the Bellaghy championship team this weekend, but insists that there will be no lying down in front of the Shamrocks either.

“I wouldn’t say we’re going in with any fear but we certainly need to go in there with a bit of belief that we can beat Ballinderry.  If they get ahead of you they can play very good football and my worry would be what happens if we throw 3 or 4 young lads in and Ballinderry start to pull away.

“We’ll be looking the boys that are given blue jerseys on Friday night to go out, stand up and be counted, we need boys to give it their all when they pull on that jersey but the odds are stacked against us.

“No matter what team we put out on Friday night, it’s going to be a tough ask.  We’re training since January and things were going well but these injuries can happen, I know Ballinderry have a couple of boys injured as well.  I was down watching them against Banagher.  Banagher were very strong that night, they beat us in the league a couple of weeks before that but Ballinderry were missing a host of boys, Gilligan, Wilkinson, Muldoon and Harney were all out, that’s five senior players they were without.”

One of the perceived weaknesses in the Bellaghy team over the past number of years has been their lack of scoring forwards.  If Eoghan Brown fails to recover from injury, then Birt admits it’s difficult to see where the scores will come from.

“Ballinderry have 6 scoring forwards whereas we’re trying to make forwards here.  We came in at the start of the year and tried to build things around the defence, which was strong last year, but we’ve lost so many boys out of the team from last year.  Ballinderry are a bit like Kerry in that they can bring another 3 or 4 forwards off the bench who’ll kick scores from all angles, we don’t have that luxury in Bellaghy.  Eoghan Brown accounts for 75 or 80 per cent of all our scores.”

One area where Bellaghy would normally expect to thrive is midfield but with Joe Diver suspended for two weeks after twice being sent off against Castledawson, and Fergal Doherty a huge doubt with a hamstring injury, it is envisaged that they could struggle.

“Conan Brown would be one of those you’d think would come in as a replacement he’s a doubt too.  If Enda Muldoon was missing and we had Fergal and Joe in midfield, you’d say it was a boost but we’re without those two players, so it won’t be easy.”

But, as all the clubs will admit, the championship is wide open.  Friday night’s game will test Bellaghy to breaking point but if they can come through it, it’d be a brave man to bet against them.