Craigbane want promotion to Intermediate level says manager Kevin Moore

The Lilywhites fully deserved Sunday’s 1-11 to 1-06 victory over Ballerin and go forward to meet Cavan champions, Drumlane with a league and Championship double under their belts and having won every game they’ve played this season. The promotion credentials cannot be questioned but with doubts hanging over the format for 2023 following an appeal against the relegation structure at senior level, nothing is guaranteed. Moore, though, is in no doubt his team deserve to go up.

“This is what we set out to do at the start of the year and the boys delivered it. The hard work’s all done,” smiled the Craigbane manager.

“It’s just a nice feeling to get a buzz back around the club. What we’re looking to do now is build another team, to push up to intermediate. We’re looking to get out of Junior this season.

“I think we’ve underachieved these last few years. I think we’re an Intermediate team. We could hold our own.”

An excellent all round display from St. Joseph’s was capped by Lee Moore’s 1-05 but amid the torrential rain but Moore senior was keen to praise his full panel.

“In my opinion we have an intermediate forward line," he explained, “And that was just the difference. We had a couple of big performances there; Jude Og in the last 10 minutes; you’ve Brian Rainey leading the defence; we’ve Rory Moore and Naoise O Mianain, all good quality players. You’ve Conor McLaughlin who’s a great player too.

“Look at Cahir O’Kane at centre half forward, I thought he was excellent today and he doesn’t get enough credit. I’m just glad for the boys, all the boys.

"It was a tight enough game. I thought the referee was sore on us at times but I’m glad to get over the line.

"I know it’s only Junior but it’s the first team in our club to go through league and Championship undefeated.

“Now we’ll give it (Ulster) a rattle. We’ll enjoy tonight but then we’ll get back at it. Whenever we won Ulster before we started in the preliminary round both times.”

The Craigbane manager said he had always expected Ballerin to come back at them after a superb second half saw the Lilywhites changed ends with a formidable 1-07 to 0-03 interval lead

"We missed a lot of chances in the first half,” added Moore, “We missed two goal chances. I was worried we might not have enough scores on the board because |I knew they would come back at us. We played Ballerin in the round robin and we knew they would come back at us.

"We always knew Ballerin was going to fight to the bitter end. They are the same as ourselves, they know what Championship football is all about so we are delighted to get over the line.”