PEARSE’S player Michael Bannon expects his side to come out all guns blazing against St Agnes’ when the two lock horns in the Junior Championship quarter-final at Naomh Éanna on Saturday (3pm).

The North Belfast side won their first two Group One games, a five point victory over Wolfe Tones and a 2-13 to 2-7 win against Éire Óg before succumbing to a seven point loss against O’Donnell’s, which secured their passage to the semi-final at the expense of Pearse’s.

Whilst crestfallen at full time, Bannon believes his side have picked themselves off the canvas and are ready to go again against St Agnes’. 

“I think the lads are pretty gutted to be fair, they knew it was always going to be a tough match against O’Donnell’s, it always is, but it was much more difficult than what they expected,” he said.

“We were missing a few players at the time and the team was shifted round so we struggled to get going and O’Donnell’s played a good game.

“As much as we were disappointed not to go straight through, we are now focused on getting the job done against a St Agnes’ team who, will probably prove to be a difficult enough task as well, seeing as they won their last game by a big margin.”

Bannon accepts that player availability has had an adverse effect on Pearse’s and has cost them so far this season but hopes that his team can channel that frustration and use the extra game to help generate momentum ahead of the latter stages of the competition.

“If you’re going to win the Championship you need to beat everything in front of you, so there is that extra bit of motivation to go out and get a result and hopefully it can kick us into a bit of form again,” he outlined.

“It has been difficult; the team has been chopping and changing the whole way through the season.

“One game we will have a full squad available and the next game it is all change so it’s going to be an opportunity against St Agnes’ to get a full team together playing and get a bit of momentum going forward if we can.

“I think the big thing is however focusing on the quarter final as opposed to the semi or else you could end up tripping up against a good St Agnes team who always run us tight, regardless of league or championship form.”

Bannon is adamant that Pearse’s have plenty more to offer in the Championship, and whilst he sees it being a tight game against St Agnes’, he is confident that his side can come out on top and move onto the semi-final.

“I think the best is yet to come,” he predicts.

“I don’t think the whole way through the league season or the Championship season Pearse’s have shown what they can do to be honest.

“We’ve been putting in a lot of good sessions recently however, training three times a week.

“It’s been a mixed season, but the best is to come in the next games if everyone can switch on and focus on the goal of bringing a Junior Championship back to North Belfast.

“We’ve beaten them a couple of times this season and we usually get a result against them, but it is never a massive win.

“We played them at the Cricky and it came down to a number of points at the end of the match during the league season, so we won’t be thinking it will be a walk in the park against them.”

St Agnes' advanced thanks to their win over Ballycastle
2Gallery

St Agnes' advanced thanks to their win over Ballycastle

It has been a similar tale for St Agnes’ whose manager Declan Crummey is relieved that his side have made it this far after a tumultuous year for the club.

“It’s been a difficult year from the start,” he accepts.

“We lost half our team, and we lost the hurling at the club this year, so we struggled to get players.

“We’ve built it up now and we got a few wins at the end of the league season, so we were a bit better prepared coming into the Championship.

“The players probably played enough together, and I think that is where we struggled in the first match against St Malachy’s.

“We lost by a point and played very poorly, but I thought against Laochra we played much better, just a couple of lapses in concentration and we gave away two goals.

“There was definite improvement, and it was very good to get a win and a good score line in the last match, but we are aware that it wasn’t a full strength Ballycastle team, still it’s always good to get into the knockout stages.”

Crummey is hopefully that a few valuable weeks on the training pitch will pay dividends as they aim to beat Pearse’s for the first time this year.

“We’ve had a lot of numbers at training, and we’ve been able to work on a lot of stuff we’ve been struggling with,” he reports.

“Confidence-wise, we have definitely improved, and we will not be afraid of anyone going into the quarter final. We know if we stand any chance in this Championship well have to beat the best teams.”

Whilst he accepts Pearse’s will be favourites going into the game, Crummy is hoping that with the pressure off, they can go out and cause an upset.

“We beat them in the Championship last year, so we know we are capable of doing it,” he continued.

“I think it will be close and we will be going in as big underdogs.

“I’m sure Pearse’s have seen some of our results this year and will be confident that they can beat us, but we have a team capable of beating them.”