'It's going to take patience and a bit of bravery' - Cunningham

2024 was seen as a high point for Ulster football, with teams from the northern province picking up every championship that was there to be won, right down to Omagh CBS winning their second consecutive Hogan Cup.

Kerry wrestled back the big prize last year while a few other competitions went the way of teams from the rest of Ireland, but when it comes to senior club semi-finals, Scotstown are looking to extend a run of five wins in a row when they take on St Brigid’s this Sunday afternoon (Kingspan Breffni Park, 3pm).

The bookmakers have made the Kiltoom club marginal favourites to secure a return to Croke Park, but after taking in what was a tense and dramatic Ulster final first hand, Anthony Cunningham is full of respect for his side’s Monaghan opponents and the value that comes with their provincial crown.

“Scotstown are formidable, the Ulster champions are always really, really strong. They hadn’t won for quite a while (their fourth and most recent Ulster win was in 1989) so they’ll have celebrated, but they’ll be really driven to get to a final, same as ourselves,” said the St Brigid’s manager.

“I was there for the Ulster final and I thought they (Scotstown) were very steady, very composed. Particularly early on, Kilcoo had a lot of play, held the ball very well but there was no panic. People said that Kilcoo should have scored more, but I thought defensively Scotstown were very, very strong. The two Hughes brothers were really good, Rory Beggan’s influence was huge, (Jack) McCarron is excellent up front. They’re formidable, no weak links.”

One thing that Cunningham took from the game was that he felt that Kilcoo’s approach erred slightly on the side of caution, and how the nature of his team is such that they prefer to play with a focus on attack, and putting scores on the board.

“It is going to take patience but it is going to take a bit of bravery as well,” was his assessment of what St Brigid’s need to do.

“Sometimes you can be over-patient and not go for it. But for us, we’ll be concentrating on our game, getting an improvement from the last day, and there are improvement areas defensively for sure but with the new rules there will be plenty of chances at both ends of the field and there’s no point saying that you’re going to completely shut down a team of Scotstown’s quality. We just need to make life hard for them, stay focused and disciplined, but also to make sure we play to our own strengths as well.

“We’re working hard on that and hopefully we get a break of the ball on the day as well, because whoever wins will need that.”

There was some disappointment around the St Brigid’s club at the choice of venue, though once TG4 asked for this match to take place in the later time slot, there was no obvious alternative venue with floodlights available. However for all Scotstown’s proximity to Cavan, this generation of players haven’t played a club game there and Cunningham was not at all concerned about the location for the contest either.

“It seemed like an obvious choice. Even beforehand, you would have thought it was going to be there, even though we would have probably preferred a Leinster venue. But I think a lot of our players have played there as well at underage and senior with Roscommon, just like they would with Monaghan, so it’s grand," he said.

"It’s a lovely pitch with smashing facilities and at this time of year, any pitch where you can be reasonably confident that you’ll get good conditions to play proper football is all you could want. There’s always chat about that type of thing among fans and so on but that’s not going to do it for us. It’s the fixtures committees and the people who run the GAA, that’s their baby.”

This conversation takes place shortly before Christmas and the club is still a hive of activity. A club night for sponsors on December 23 proved very popular with young players looking to get their picture taken with their heroes, and as Cunningham looks out at everything that’s going on, it’s clear that he’s quite happy to forego a significant chunk of his free time around the festive season.

“Of course it does tie you down a bit, you’re probably playing less golf or other sports, but it’s great when you’re winning, that’s the main thing,” he remarked.

“Losses are hard, they do hit you, but that drives you as well. You don’t want to be on the losing side because you put so much work into it. Particularly last year, we were so disappointed and would have happily given up our time to be where Pearses were, playing big games in the winter.

“The memory of that feeling was a big part of the decision as to whether to continue on or not. Thankfully, it’s gone on well this year but we want a couple more steps, hopefully.

“The players are such a big part of that too. They’re a very driven group, very ambitious and an absolute pleasure to work with. Where else would you want to be?” Cunningham added.