The Sports Direct Premiership is on pause for a weekend and the Clearer Water Irish Cup is at the centre of attentions as the top-flight’s leading four each face clashes of a different kind.
NI Football League CEO Gerard Lawlor has previously put on record his vision of a so-called ‘weekend of football’ stretching from Friday to Sunday, and in the quarter-finals of Ireland’s oldest football cup competition, that idea will be put to the test.
In a quartet of knock-out duels which all feature a Premiership big hitter and a Championship hopeful, there’s upset potential wherever you look and bundles of excitement in store.
Like an expensive meal at a Michelin-star restaurant, the helpings should whet the appetite.
It all starts with the appetizer on Friday night (7:45pm); Cliftonville travelling to Portadown, who will contest in the BetMcLean Cup Final as its first second-tier representative in eight years.
A healthy main course on Saturday afternoon (both 3pm) sees Glentoran hosting Ballyclare Comrades and Newington playing visitors at Inver Park – where they’ve played their home games this term – against reigning Irish League champions Larne.
Finally, the dessert entails Institute welcoming Linfield to the Brandywell on Sunday (1pm) after the hosts survived an appeal from Ards, who they took down in the last-16, over midfielder Oisin Devlin’s eligibility and negotiated potential logistical problems given Derry GAA’s blockbuster home clash with All-Ireland champions Dublin a couple hundred metres up the road on Saturday – those fixtures are now to be played on separate days to ease congestion.
If it isn’t worth the asking price, you wouldn’t know what is – it’s a groundhopper’s delight and there’s much at stake.
It’s easy, of course, to bill these as mismatches, but to do so would be to discount a higher standard of Championship whose clubs can compete against top-level opposition.
Case in point, Friday night.
Portadown haven’t lost a single cup tie all season, leaving some Premiership adversaries red-faced in the process.
That includes Cliftonville’s north Belfast archrivals Crusaders, who Niall Currie’s Ports beat 2-1 at Shamrock Park on their way to the BetMcLean Cup decider, where they will face Linfield on a March 10 Sunday special.
The four-time Irish Cup champions, who dropped out of the top-flight last campaign and are hungry to surge back at the first ask, also conquered Dungannon Swifts 5-2 in the Mid-Ulster Cup showpiece, sank Glenavon 1-0 to seal their berth in next week’s blockbuster at Windsor Park and have overcome Loughgall (twice) and Carrick Rangers in their knock-out feats.
Third-place in the Championship, their counterparts in the same position in the Premiership are wounded animals.
Jim Magilton’s Reds were on a 16-match unbeaten streak before falling to straight losses to Linfield (3-0) and Dungannon (3-1), thus they’re likely to travel with a chip on their shoulder.
Counting a formidable array of attacking talent that includes the likes of top-flight top goal-getter Ben Wilson, record marksman Joe Gormley and crafty brothers Ronan and Rory Hale, they are the Premiership’s leading scorers for a reason but have found a hitherto impressive defence breached of late.
The Championship’s leading scorer Zach Barr is in Portadown’s line-up – he has 17 league goals in all, spread across Newington and the Ports who he joined in January – and surely smells blood, while the technique and guile of Ryan Mayse and Eamon Fyfe are a useful support act to the big striker.
It’s not a game where the Solitude men can expect to waltz in and walk it, even if Portadown only ended a run of three without a win last weekend when coming from behind to emerge victorious at Ballinamallard United.
Indeed, Friday’s hosts have conceded the first goal in each of their last five fixtures – yet lost just one of them and took all three points in two, including that 2-1 win at Ferney Park.
The sole side Currie’s charges couldn’t stop in that span are also in cup action, with Paul Hamilton’s resilient Newington staring into a huge task when they face Larne.
The ‘Ton, who beat league leaders Dundela and Premiership basement dwellers Newry City in the previous two rounds, are the lowest-ranked team left in the competition – eighth in the Championship – and are split 20 places in the pyramid from the top-flight leaders who they face on Saturday.
Tiernan Lynch’s Invermen haven’t lost in the league in 21 matches, and that lonely defeat to Loughgall is the only time they’ve trudged off as losers aside from penalty shoot-outs across all competitions in 2023/24. It really is a formidable run.
They also haven’t conceded a league goal in 2024 and most recently extended their succession of clean-sheet triumphs to six when Lee Bonis (two) and Andy Ryan fired daggers into the back of Glentoran’s net last Friday night.
That said, Newington aren’t short of momentum either; Ruaidhri Donnelly bagged his fifth in five matches since arriving on a head-turning half-season loan from the Glens with the only goal against Ards in midweek.
And having recorded just a single draw in their 29 Championship outings, the Swans, who’ve got a healthy mix of young talent such as Paul Donnelly, Ben McCaul and Peter McKiernan as well as seasoned campaigners like Richard Gowdy, Darren Stuart and Tiarnan McNicholl at their disposal, are a tight-knit group who play to win.
It’s a massive ask for the north Belfast side, but memories of their incredible 1-0 triumph away to Glentoran in 2012 are still fresh and Larne will be averse to going into a gunfight with knives.
Meanwhile, Stephen Small’s Ballyclare Comrades, seventh in the Championship and in a second straight Irish Cup last-eight showdown, are Oval-bound to tackle Warren Feeney’s Glens.
It was at the hands of Feeney’s cousin Lee and Bangor that the Comrades suffered a 4-0 second-tier loss to last time out, although their hosts are also reeling from the aforementioned Larne defeat, too.
It’s not quite mathematical yet but the east Belfast juggernauts are academically all but out of the Gibson Cup hunt as they sit 24 points behind the pacesetters from east Antrim with nine left to play.
The Irish Cup is their great white hope of both automatic European qualification and a silver lining to end the term on; Feeney, who has struggled to win over the faithful since his appointment last summer, knows this competition is crucial – the Glens won it in 2020 for what remains the only trophy since Ali Pour’s takeover the year before.
Larne held the upper hand in the County Antrim Shield Final, recording a four-peat when they defeated their fellow full-timers 2-1 at Seaview in January, but Glentoran are yet to swallow the losing pill against anyone other than them in 2024.
That’s where they’ll take confidence from, and they avoided previous banana skins in this competition against Annagh United (1-0) and Ballymacash Rangers (6-1) beforehand, but Ballyclare, who’ve been inspired by the shrewd link-up of Gary Donnelly and Darius Roohi in the top end of the pitch, are an open-ended team who have it in them to make things awkward.
Add attack-minded full-backs Caomhan McGuinness and Bobby Higgins to the equation, as well as the energetic young forward Michael Morgan, marauding defender Owen McConville and industrious midfielders Liam Hassin and Cillin Gilmour, and you have a squad that’s unlikely to do a containment job.
How can any storms be weathered? Well, injury issues earlier in the season appear to have subsided and Feeney has settled on a strong starting XI – and he’d be wise to go strong in a match that means a hell of a lot of a lot in Glentoran’s season.
Their Big Two rivals Linfield won’t have it easy, either.
David Healy’s men begin their two-part Sunday feast with a trip to a resurgent Institute, who are just two points short of the promotion play-off in the Championship having been spared a relegation shoot-out only by Warrenpoint Town’s administrative drop-out under a year ago.
So goes the old saying, ‘12 months is a long time in football’, and Stute, who were relegated from the Premiership under the controversial points-per-game system at the height of Covid four years previously, are fighting fit.
Kevin Deery’s men nudged into the quarter-finals courtesy of Mikhail Kennedy’s eighth-minute finish against Ards at the Brandywell in the last round, but a query over midfield sensation Devlin’s eligibility for the encounter threatened to derail their progress in the tournament.
The 17-year-old, who joined Larne on a three-and-a-half-year deal in January but has been loaned back to ‘Stute for the remainder of the campaign, ultimately was ruled all-clear to play and the north west side kept their place in the Irish Cup even though Ards boss John Bailie appeared not to have been properly informed of what was a late change in the squad.
It’s water under the Foyle Bridge now, though, and Sunday’s hosts, who have proven sharp-shooters at this level in January recruits Kennedy and BJ Banda leading their line, can cause issues for Linfield, who have returned to winning ways in the Premiership to sit just a point behind Larne following a three-game winless blip.
Starting with Portadown versus Cliftonville on Friday night, let the fun and games commence.
Featured image from Paul Harvey Photography.
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