Club first but McGourty hopes for Antrim return

St. Gall's forward Conor McGourty is hoping to break his way back into the Antrim senior football set-up 'sooner rather than later', with an obvious eagerness to build on the progress made by the Saffrons in 2009.

McGourty hit the headlines for all the wrong reasons earlier this year when he was dismissed from the Antrim county panel for a breach of discipline.

Ahead of today's St. Gall's v Clontibret Ulster Club SFC semi-final, he said: "Obviously a couple of factors have to come right here and there, but you never say no to anything in this life.

"Anything can come around the corner - you just never know what is going to happen - but the immediate goal is St. Gall's.

"St. Gall's is everyone in this club's life - the players who go and play for Antrim get on well, but when they come back to St. Gall's it's a different attitude. You are playing with the lads that you have grown up with.

"There are factors there to be dealt with Antrim. But at the end of the day, hopefully there are not dealt with until after March and hopefully St. Gall's are All-Ireland champions by that stage."

And 'club' is clearly key for the Milltown Row attacker who has had a busy spell for St. Gall's, seeing Ulster Club Championship action in recent weeks in both hurling and football.

"Fair play to Antrim, they did very well over the summer and no one holds that against them," he added."

"At the end of the day, I think Aodhan Gallagher said it and I saw Rory Kavanagh saying it in the Irish News last week - 'your county is your county, but there is that extra bit of pressure on you when it comes to your club.'

"You want to do better with the club than you do with the county and no one holds that against you.

"I will be back in an Antrim jersey some day but the ultimate goal is to win this Sunday, win an Ulster title and try and win an All-Ireland title.

"If that happens then great, we'll have a look at Antrim after that. But the ultimate goals are to go and win things with St. Gall's."

With an Ulster Intermediate Hurling Championship title already in the bag, St. Gall's are vying for a unique double with an Ulster SFC title also in their sights.

McGourty says that the former All-Ireland club finalists will not be complacent going into this afternoon's Ulster semi-final showdown with Clontibret at the Athletic Grounds in Armagh (throw-in 2.30pm).

"Clontibret will fancy their chances at winning Ulster, with boys like Conor McManus and Vinny Corey who have been so close to beating Kerry with their county squad and breaking into the final stages of the All-Ireland," he said.

"They have five or six (Monaghan) boys - Dessie Mone and Paul McGuigan as well. They have class players all over the park and then like ourselves, they have very good club players that sometimes don't get recognised at county level.

"They have 17 or 18 boys that are very good players - good solid club players. And they have county players also in defence, midfield and the forwards.

"They are going to be a typical Monaghan side - physical, tough and hard to beat. At the end of the day it's going to be, as most Ulster club matches are, coming down to one or two points at the end of it and hopefully we are the right side of it."

And McGourty says that with a provincial hurling title already in the bag, there is an extra incentive to add provincial football silverware to the club's achievements list this year.

"I have to say that things are going very well for us at the minute. There's a lot of boys playing hurling and football.

"The managers are working well together and there is obviously a backlog of fixtures - players are tired or whatever, but the managers are very understanding.

"There is a bit of pressure on the footballers trying to go in to win an Ulster title. 2010 is our centenary year so it would be great to go into January looking at two All-Ireland semi-finals.

"If we could get to Croke Park in our centenary year in whatever code or both codes it would be absolutely unbelievable for the club."