MacCumhaills face St. Eunan’s in the Under-21A final this Sunday at O’Donnell Park and MacCumhaills man Joel Bradley Walsh is looking forward to proving themselves against the all conquering Letterkenny side.
St. Eunan’s defeated Four Masters convincingly in Sunday’s semi-final, backed up by their 4-10 to 0-05 hammering of Aodh Ruadh in the quarter-final.
Joel said: “At the start of the under-21s, the team you look for is St. Eunan’s, especially with their success this year. They won the Reserves, Seniors and Hurling and in they’re in the final now of the 21s so they’re going to be the team to beat.
“They had 8 or 9 players in that senior team who just got put out in Ulster so it’s gonna be a really tough task but it’s the game you want.”
MacCumhaills won in the first round 2-11 to 1-07 against Killybegs before a tense 1 point win, 2-11 to 3-07 against Termon saw the Ballybofey club move into the final 4.
After a massive 0-24 to 0-04 win in the semi-final over Ardara last weekend, in which Joel scored 7 points, he said it’s been all preparation for the final since.
“We don’t have much training to be done within the week, we had 15 sessions between Killybegs and Termon so we got everyone together and our bonding was done then.
“We had two meet ups this week and we’re just prepping for Sunday now.”
“On Saturday we got out of the box really quickly, we were up about 5 points within 3-4 minutes and we were quite comfortable but you can’t treat any team with too much respect, you need to try and put a big score on the board to prove a point and it got everyone talking that we beat them by 20 points.
“But St. Eunan’s is the one we’re looking for, there’ll be no 20 points in that game.”
Joel has two games to focus on this weekend, as his Institute side face Dundela in the Northern Irish Championship tomorrow, but while he has a hectic schedule between the two sports, he’s relishing the challenge and is hoping it’s worth the commitment.
Joel said: “I only get a Wednesday off at the minute, it’s mad. I’m actually playing tomorrow.
“Before the Termon game, I played against Ards in the Brandywell and went straight from the Brandywell to Convoy to play against Termon, I did struggle but hopefully it all pays off.
“I’ve a game tomorrow first i need to take care of that and then onto the final on Sunday.”
Sunday’s final throws-in at 1.45pm at O’Donnell Park.
