Beara have been dealt a blow ahead of their county senior football championship opener against Seandn on Easter Monday, April 6th, in Ballingeary, at 3pm.
BY KIERAN McCARTHY
BEARA have been dealt a blow ahead of their county senior football championship opener against Seandún on Easter Monday, April 6th, in Ballingeary, at 3pm, as Adrigole’s David Harrington has decided to throw his lot in with UCC this season.
‘Losing David is a major loss for us because he’s such a good player and has been for us for the last few years,’ Beara spokesman Finbarr Harrington said.
Preparations haven’t been ideal either for Beara as they face a Seandún team that beat them last season, 1-17 to 0-15, in a round-two game in this section of the championship – a match where David Harrington scored 0-6 for Beara.
‘Seandún are going quite well, I think, and they beat us last year. For whatever reason, it just didn’t happen for us on the day,’ Harrington said.
‘Last year was one of the best years in terms of our preparation because we got together earlier and trained hard, but it didn’t work out against Seandún. It was very disappointing and we will try to make amends this year, but it’s going to be difficult.
‘We’ve had a few challenge games but it’s been hard this year as the clubs are tight for numbers. Preparation hasn’t been what we wanted it to be.’
Beara will look to some familiar faces for leadership. Castletownbere’s Andrew O’Sullivan, Dave Fenton and Gary Murphy are expected to be prominent, as will Matthew O’Shea of Glengarriff, the Goggin brothers from Adrigole and Sean Terry O’Sullivan of Garnish.
Aidan McGurn is new man in charge of the Beara senior footballers this season, but as Finbarr Harrington explains the problem runs much deeper than not being able to get together ahead of the start of the county championship.
‘If a club is tight on numbers it can’t release players and that has a knock-on effect with Beara then as the preparation won’t be ideal,’ he said.
‘It’s a sign of the times. With my own club, Garnish, who I have been involved with for the past five years, there were days when we struggled to field a team. A lot of young fellas have emigrated. Adrigole are in the same boat, they are tight for numbers. It’s the same for Glengarriff and Bere Island. Urhan and Castletown would be in a better position.’
Harrington added: ‘In Garnish, we only got two players through from the underage, we got one last year and we will have one next year.’