Rock's odyssey continues this weekend with Ulster Club Intermediate Football Championship first-round clash

ROCK’S odyssey continues this weekend when they move on to the provincial stage with an Ulster Club Intermediate Football Championship first round clash with Rostrevor.

They travel to take on the Down champions at Burren on Saturday, and the St Patrick’s are on a roll after winning their first ever Tyrone IFC title.

Rock have never completed at this level before, but they do have extensive provincial experience, having won the Ulster Junior crown on three occasions.

Team captain Aidan McGarrity was involved in two of those Ulster Club JFC triumphs, and he’s excited about the new challenge facing his team.

“It’s a chance to play with the shackles off,” he said.

“All the teams that are in it have done their bit, and can push on now

“It’s an unbelievable thing for the club, and people come out for the Tyrone final, then it just rolls on to the next day, for we have earned another day out.

“It’s another day out that we can bring all our people to, we’re a small club but it’s a great day out for our club.”

Rock came into this year’s Tyrone championship under the radar, having struggled in the league with a number of unconvincing performances, finding it difficult to establish a level of consistency.

But when a number of key players came back from injury, the dynamic of the squad changed, and they felt the timing was just right to mount a serious challenge for the championship.

Thay belief was galvanised as they hit the ground running with a 2-17 to 2-9 first round victory over Kildress, which brought them to a quarter-final clash with Greencastle, which they won convincingly by 1-18 to 0-11.

And the GAA public began to sit up and take notice when they turned over Division Two league winners Naomh Eoghan by 4-19 to 1-19 with a classy semi-final performance.

Nevertheless, they went in to their first ever Intermediate Championship final as underdogs, but proved that they were more than capable of competing with the best, and were somewhat unfortunate not to win a game that finished level on 0-11 each.

And in the replay, the St Patrick’s hit top form and were full value for a resounding 0-23 to 1-13 triumph.

Now they’re in bonus territory, said skipper McGarrity, who loves this time of year, which usually sees hm travel to venues all over Ulster to watch provincial championship games involving other clubs.

“It’s total bonus territory. Even if we didn’t win the championship in other years, it’s just something I like following anyway, from junior to senior level.

“I love watching it, it’s a great type of football, and for us to have earned than now is just unreal, and we’ll look forward to it.”

The experienced campaigner leads the attack from full forward, and all around him he has top quality forwards with an eye for the posts.

Shane Murphy and Liam Nugent were in electrifying form in the IFC final replay, hitting a combined total of 0-17, and they will be important figures again this weekend.

“I don’t want to sound like I’m that much older then them, but I have been watching those boys do that since they were children,” said the team captain.

“I have seen Shane do that his whole life, he could kick a ’45 from he was about 12-years-old.

“He’s got an unbelievable talent that only a handful of people in Tyrone who can kick like that have got.

“And when you have that in your team, and you have that to fall back on, especially the way the rules have changed this past couple of years, it’s just made for Shane.

“And Liam has been dogged by injuries, but he has got a good run at it, and he’s just incredible for our team, and a fit Laim Nugent is very hard to stop.”

McGarrity also paid tribute to the dedication of members of the wider squad, many of whom have not had the opportunity to see competitive action in this year’s championship.

“If you haven’t had any championship minutes, it’s going to be difficult to get you on in the final, but we have people that make it possible to do things like fixing kick-outs.

“You can’t do that with 20 people, you need 30, and we have unbelievable club people who have been chipping away, coming to training and doing their bit.

“And the reality is that without those people, we wouldn’t have this incredible achievement that we have made.”

Rock’s impressive record in the provincial arena will breed confidence that they can make an impact once again this season, albeit at a higher level than before.

They were crowned Ulster Junior champions in 2007, and went on to reach the All-Ireland final, losing to Canovee of Cork at Croke Park.

And two more Ulster JFC titles followed in 2014 and 2016, the latter also leading to a return to GAA Headquarters for a second All-Ireland final appearance, which again ended in defeat at the hands of Glenbeigh-Glencar of Kerry.

Rock have a handful of survivors from their most recent Ulster success a decade ago, including McGarrity, and he will lead from the front at Burren on Saturday.

The Rostrevor management, having already clinched the Down title, were able to travel to O’Neill Park in Dungannon to take a good look at their Ulster opponents in the Tyrone final replay, while Rock manager Paul Coney and his coaching team have since been trying to collate as much information as possible about the Mourne side.

“They probably have that bit of an advantage having watched us,” said Coney.

Coney feels his team has every reason to go into this weekend’s game with a confidence that they can progress to the next stage, given the manner in which they blossomed in the Tyrone final replay.

“It’s something that want on our radar, because the championship win was something that no-one saw coming,” he said.

“We know Pomeroy is a quality team, and I think our lads possibly showed them too much respect, and we were nervy.

“But our message to them was that there was nothing in the opposition that we had to fear. The biggest thing that we had to do was perform.

“We knew deep down that that performance was in them, because they weren’t happy with how the last game went, and thankfully we got out of jail at the end of the first half, and gave us a bit of light at the end of the tunnel.

“Rock have never won an intermediate before, never been in senior league football.

“That prize was there, and I just knew the boys were never going to let that go.”