It’s all on the line on Saturday evening as St Paul’s and Tullysaran battle it out for a place in the Intermediate decider.
Both came through incredibly tight tussles in their last outings to make it to this stage of the competition.
St Paul’s needed extra time, and three goals, to ultimately shake off the attentions of Wolfe Tones in the quarter final.
Twice Shane McConville’s men threw away five points leads in normal time but came good to eventually edge through.
Battle hardened
That wasn’t the only battle they found themselves in so far throughout their championship campaign.
They just about got past Clonmore with one point to spare having not played to their full potential.
Tullysaran likewise took all of their time to get going in their first-round victory against Crossmaglen IIs.
While they never really hit top form, they saw out a nine-point win in the end, but their quarter final was much tougher.
They slogged it out with Belleek in what turned out to be the game of the summer throughout all the championships.
Belleek threw everything they had at John Devine’s men but like St Paul’s, Tullysaran stayed calm and eventually pulled through.
That sets up an exciting and impossible to call semi-final which is literally on a knife edge and could go either way.
The Lurgan gained the upper hand when the sides clashed at the same stage of the competition back in 2020.
They’ve racked up 15 different scorers in two games and a forward line led by Armagh’s Andrew Murnin.
Tullysaran will looked to the likes of Gavin Conlon and Eddie Mallon to do most of the scoring while Mark McKeever is a threat as well.
It will come down to who scores more, and St Paul’s look to have more scoring options. That being said, it could literally end up going either way.
