HOME advantage isn’t always a boon – but although Josh Largo Elis has to travel up from Lisnaskea he’s looking forward to Jordanstown at last hosting an Ulster University Sigerson Cup match.
The holders didn’t get a home draw throughout their run to the title last year, nor in their two matches so far, away to ATU Sligo and then on neutral ground against University of Limerick.
Yet be careful what you wish for. The last time UU welcomed visitors in this competition they were destroyed by UCD, who won by 7-8 to 3-10.
Another such goal-fest would be surprising, although Maynooth did put five past ATU Donegal in round 2B, scoring 5-20 in total. A more helpful assessment of the Kildare outfit’s ability, though, comes from their round three win over St Mary’s, by 2-9 to 1-7, but it must be noted that ‘the Ranch’ had lost Seanie O’Donnell to a dubious red card in the opening quarter.
Flying Fermanagh wing-back Largo Elis is living at home while he works on his Master’s in International Business HR, having completed a Business Studies degree. It’s not all study and football, though, as the 23-year-old points out: “I help my mum, she runs a creche in Irvinestown, keeps me busy.”
He’s also having to work to two sets of footballing rules, lining out for Fermanagh in their opening Division Three defeat away to Kildare last weekend.
“It’s hard to go from one to the other,” he acknowledges. “We learnt all the new rules and then, once the Sigerson started, we found out we were going back to the old rules. We’re kind of juggling both, although once you get into the swing of things it’s all right.
“You’re looking behind you to see if there are three men behind you, you’re afraid of going over the [half-way] line. You have boys shouting ‘Go on ahead!’”
With this match brought forward to 3pm on Wednesday due to damage caused to the floodlights by Storm Eowyn last Friday, Largo Elis is hoping for decent backing from fellow students:
“You’d like to think we’ll get a good crowd out because Maynooth are a good team, we’ll need all the support we can get. We played them last year in the semi-final so they’re probably coming up the road looking for revenge.
“We know they have some good forwards, a couple of Meath county seniors, a couple of Kerry seniors as well. They’re going to be strong.
“Eoghan Frayne is captain of Meath, they’ve a lot who’ll need man-marked and watched, but we need to play our own game first and hopefully get over the line.”
UU, again under the management of Barry Dillon and Paul Rouse, have plenty of inter-county talent of their own, as Largo Elis acknowledges:
“We have most of the same boys in as last year, except Darragh [Canavan] and Niall [Loughlin] – but we’ve added Danny Magill and Odhran Murdock of Down, they’ve really helped.”
Darragh Canavan’s younger brother Ruairi is likely to still be ruled out after suffering concussion during his club Errigal Ciaran’s All-Ireland SFC final loss to Cuala of Dublin. His Tyrone colleague Eoin McElholm missed last week’s win against UL but played for the Red Hands in their win over Derry.
Even if the Loughmacrory lad misses out again, UU can look to the likes of Derry men Eoin McEvoy, Charlie Diamond, and Eunan Mulholland, plus other Red Hands such as Ciaran Daly and Conor Cush.
The venue should help, and UU have the quality to keep hold of the trophy for at least one more round.
The fourth quarter-final takes place on Wednesday evening (6.45pm), with DCU DE hosting TUS Midlands. DCU saw off ATU Sligo in round three, helped by two goals from Conor Doland, bouncing back from a one-point loss to city rivals UCD in round 2A, having thrashed MTU Kerry in round one. The Midlands team are unbeaten so far, having won in extra time at Maynooth in round one before edging out MTU Cork in round 2A.
