McKenna Cup given new lease of life

As well as benefiting from live television coverage from TG4, this year's Dr McKenna Cup has gained sponsorship by a new GAA weekly newspaper, Gaelic Life, launching today and dedicated to football and hurling in the nine Ulster counties.

Published as a colour tabloid every Friday, Gaelic Life will provide a mix of features, previews and profiles along with general GAA news and views.

It is produced by the North West of Ireland Printing and Publishing Company, which is based in Omagh and puts out six weekly titles, including the Ulster Herald, Donegal News and Fermanagh Herald.

Last month TG4 announced the live broadcast of five Dr McKenna Cup games, beginning on Sunday with the clash of Derry and Cavan from Celtic Park in Derry. This will be the first such game broadcast live on national television.

Monaghan's Séamus McEnaney is the latest manager to announce his panel for the competition; they play their first game, against Fermanagh, at Irvinestown this Sunday.

Monaghan reached last year's final following victories over Derry, Armagh and Queen's University, eventually losing out to Tyrone, and McEnaney is again intent on treating each game with the utmost seriousness.

"It's a great way to get the year started," he says of the competition. "We have three games in the group stage, which means that we can give every player on the panel a run."

Damien Freeman will again captain the team, the panel for which includes such new faces as goalkeeper Pádraig McBennett from Castleblayney, Carrickmacross centre back Gary McEneaney, Latton's Stephen Fitzpatrick, Inniskeen's Paul Meegan, Aghabog's Shane Mulligan and Rockcorry's Mark Daly.

Mark Duffy, who won a Dublin football medal with UCD last year, and Jason Hughes, who survived a battle with cancer, are recalled to county duty.

Meanwhile, the former Cork hurling goalkeeper John Mitchell has been appointed the new Wicklow senior manager for the coming year.

Mitchell played in goal for Cork when they won the All-Ireland under-21 title in 1966 after three marathon games with Wexford - eventually winning the second replay by 9-9 to 5-9.

Also included in that Cork team were Gerald McCarthy, the new Cork manager, as well as the current Waterford manager, Justin McCarthy, and subsequent county stars Denis Coughlan and Charlie McCarthy.

Mitchell, who lives in Dublin, has been closely associated with Wicklow hurling over a number of years and was keen to take up the challenge.

Wicklow will play in Division Two A during the forthcoming National League against teams like Carlow, Armagh, Laois, Derry and Meath.

MONAGHAN SF PANEL: Pádraig McBennett, Donal Morgan, James Coyle, Mark Duffy, Gary McEneaney, Jason Hughes, Stephen Fitzpatrick, Paul Finlay, Dick Clerkin, Dermot McArdle, Paul Meegan, Mark Daly, Eoin Duffy, Rory Woods, Stephen Gollogly, Shane Duffy, Shane Smyth, Ciarán Hanratty, Shane Mulligan, Nicholas Corrigan, Vincent Corey, Ciarán Hughes, Brendan McKenna, Matthew McKenna, Conor McManus, Damien Freeman, Tomás Freeman.