Intermediate Football Championship
Rostrevor v St John’s
Sunday, Atticall, 3.30pm
ROSTREVOR cannot allow the weight of expectation to get the better of them during this year’s championship. That is the message that manager Tom Franklin wanted to send out in the lead up to their opening Intermediate Championship match against St John’s.
Rostrevor last won the Intermediate Championship in 2017. They lost back-to-back finals in 2022 and 2023.
But expectation will have grown following the club’s Division Two victory and promotion last week.
Manager Tom Franklin said: “The expectations are quite high, and they have been quite high for a number of years.
“Now, I don’t know where that comes from. Perhaps it is tradition, or whatever you want to call it.
“One of the things that Rostrevor need to do is concentrate on the next game. Rather than looking at what is coming down the tracks.”
Their next game is against St John’s, whose only recent men’s championship success was a 2008 junior title. Before that, you have to go all the way back to 1924 when a club in the parish won a Senior Championship, but that cub folded ten years later.
St John’s are at a disadvantage in this game, as they played Division Three football and finished fourth in that table.
But Tom said that the Drumaroad/Clanvaraghan outfit must be respected.
“St John’s will have had a real good look at us recently.
“I am aware of what they have been doing and how they have been going.
“We played St John’s twice last year. We struggled at home, and we went to St John’s towards the end of the season when there wasn’t as much of a risk.
“They will be a tough opposition for us. They will be big and physical and they won’t take a backwards step. It will be a tough test.
“There will be no easy games in the championship. Teams will have seen us. They will have put us on a pedestal to be knocked down.
“We just have to deal with that pressure.”
