CHRISTMAS in Cookstown is going to be a little different this year but you won’t hear the minor squad complain.
Their focus is on St Stephen’s Day and the challenge that reigning Ulster champions Four Masters presents.
The Donegal champs stand in front of Cookstown and a spot in the St Paul’s Minor Ulster final, somewhere the club have never been before. So, skipping that extra slice of turkey on Christmas Day may not be that hard to do.
Things have already changed significantly for joint managers Jason Quinn and Barry Hughes and the addition of a couple of new babies have kept them on their toes.
Cookstown joint-manager Jason Quinn doesn’t underestimate the challenge of Four Masters in the Ulster semi-final
“It was tough on my mum and dad. I knew I was self-destructing. And I also knew the next phase of that, if I had carried on, it was not being here. I was in a very dark place...” - the life and times of Caolan Mooney
“It’s our first Christmas with a new child and Barry has a new child recently,” explained Quinn.
“John McCrystal has become a grandad so it’s his first Christmas with the wee twins, so it’ll be good to look back in 20 years and say that’s how we all spent our first Christmas with the newborns.
“It’s an exciting time of the year to be planning for a serious championship game. St Stephen’s Day, there’ll be a special feeling to it, and I suppose that was a bit of motivation for the players the last day too (against Mayobridge).
“We’ve plenty of supporters that follow us, and Christmas isn’t for everyone, it’s not the happiest time of year for a lot of people and that was the motivation, to reward the supporters and give them something to look forward to at Christmas.
“So, on Christmas Day, they’re looking forward to going to Belfast on St Stephen’s Day and we’ve kept up that end of the bargain now and people can get excited for it.”
That Mayobridge contest went right down to the wire and the Fr Rock’s club eventually emerged victorious after extra time. Quinn is hoping that that competitive outing will stand to his team going forward.
“We’re hoping that bit of extra time will stand to us, that was the big concern we had going down to Belfast that day, was the length of the lay-off we had,” he continued.
“Genuinely, we haven’t had our full squad training together in a couple of months.
“There’s different school football, county minors, county u20s and all those other management have been understanding as well and we’ve tried to manage the players' workload.
“In terms of preparing for games of that magnitude, we probably haven’t got to prepare as well as we’d like to have but hopefully with no other distractions over the next week or so we can knuckle down and get ourselves ready for a tough battle.”
A tough battle is describing the challenge Cookstown have ahead of them lightly. Four Masters have reached the last two Ulster finals at this age grade, winning last years, and Quinn is well aware of the threat they pose.
“They’re an organised team with serious pace all over the field and plenty of players confident and capable in front of the post.
“Their whole team more or less plays football together, they’ve done three in a row in Donegal and they’re reigning Ulster champions.
“They have to have a serious togetherness built up which always makes a team a lot harder to beat so we’re under no illusions.
“They’re going to be very difficult; we’ve been well tested in Tyrone week in, week out, in a strong competitive environment.
“Whether that’s going to be enough to overcome the reigning champions, who knows. We’ll just have to prepare as best we can and like any other day, go out and play to the best of our ability and hopefully it’s enough to get us into the New Year’s Day final.”