Fintona to face Urris in Ulster Club Junior Football Championship tie

IT’S been a season of outstanding achievement for Fintona, and they’re about to reach out for even greater glory when they take on Urris of Donegal in Sunday’s Ulster Club Junior Football Championship first round tie at O’Neills Healy Park.

The all-conquering Pearses won the league and championship double in Tyrone, and now they have their sights set on becoming the best in the province.

They go into this weekend’s encounter with limited information about their opponents, but with a confidence that they can compete with anybody at this level.

“There’s an old saying that anybody that gets to an Ulster campaign is in bonus territory, but there’s no bonus territory here, we are there on merit,” said joint manager Cathal McCarron

“If you’re the best in Tyrone, you deserve to go to the next step.

“We’ll take it one game at a time and see where it takes us.

“But you have got to embrace these challenges when they present themselves, because you can train for a long time, you can put a lot of work in for a long time, but these challenges and these opportunities only come about now and again.

“So it’s an opportunity that we’ll embrace.”

Fintona will be looking to follow in the footsteps of last year’s Tyrone Junior champions Clogher, who won the Ulster title and went all the way to the All-Ireland final in Croke Park.

But McCarron insisted that his players will be keeping their feet firmly planted on the ground.

“We have only sneaked through the Tyrone championship final with a last minute goal, Clogher had the final won last year in the first half.

“To put us in the same conversation as Clogher, I wouldn’t be getting that presumptious just yet.”

Along with co-manager and Omagh St Enda’s clubmate Connor O’Donnell, McCarron has been impressed by the unity and spirit that binds a talented squad of Fintona footballers.

Friendships off the field have helped the players build cohesion and teamwork that have found expression in a string of compelling performances.

“These boys know nothing else, they’re Fintona to the core.

“We have come in at the start of the year, and we have tried to instil that.

“When these boys go to club championship games they’re going in tens and twelves, they live out of each other’s pockets.

“They’re like-minded people on the one journey, trying to get to the same destination.

“They have to take great credit for how they have bought in.”

Fintona have suffered just one defeat through league and championship this year, displaying a high level of consistency and footballing excellence in both competitions.

“I feel that these boys have been put up on a pedestal to an extent.

“This has been a really tough league, we’re in Division Three football, where it’s condensed, and only the top team goes up.

“We have won that, we have gone on and done the double, we’re the first team to do the double since this condensed league has come in.

“So for me, pound for pound, these boys have had an achievement, they have won the toughest double that’s going in junior football in a long time.

“They have to take credit for that, and the boys have to be proud of their efforts.”

McCarron and O’Donnell have established a reputation as two of the most respected coaches in the county, and worked with Tyrone U20 manager Paul Devlin over the past three years, making big contributions to the All-Ireland titles won in 2024 and 2025.

They coached a number of Fintona’s emerging young stars during those campaigns, and were delighted to get the opportunity to renew that partnership at club level.

“We were delighted to get the opportunity that Fintona gave us, and we’ll be forever thankful for that.

“But it was the perfect blend. We have worked with a few of those lads in the U20s, they’re an ambitious group, and we felt that their age profile was exactly what you would want in a team that you would want to take.

“We went in, and they have totally embraced everything that we put at them, they are like sponges, they want to know more information.

“They’re recovering to the last letter of the law, they’re putting their effort in the gym to the last letter of the law, and everything that they have done so far this year can only be commended.

“We can’t really take that much credit in terms of their buy-in, it’s easy being told something, it’s harder to take it on board, and everything that we have told, they have taken on board.”

The Ulster Club Championship adventure would not have been possible had they not snatched a dramatic victory over Stewartstown in the Tyrone JFC final.

Substitute Caolan Donnelly emerged as the hero, smashing home a brilliant stoppage time goal with a nerve of steel to take on a shot when the safer option of a point would have sent the decider to a replay.

“We’re celebrating because we stole it, and there’s no denying that,” said McCarron.

“We probably would have celebrated Caolan fisting the ball over the bar just as much, because we would have got out of jail even with a draw.

“Audacity is a very kind way of putting it. If the ‘keeper had got a hand to it, it might have been a different word.

“It was a great finish. It was nice for the Donnelly family that Caolan stepped up and got the goal in the clutch moment, so we’re delighted with that.

“Every team has match-winners, and you have a wee bit of stardust, and when you’re coaching at under-age level, you’re trying to produce those types of players.

“We’re talking all year that you take the emotion out of the moment and you do the right thing in the right moment, whatever that is.

“And to be fair to Caolan, if that had been the first minute of the game, he would have done the same thing, so he took the emotion out of that play and he found the net.

“Caolan will now be a proud Fintona man for the rest of his life, because he can dine out on that for a long, long time.”

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