BELFAST’S Lord Mayor is no stranger to special engagements and John Finucane will be hoping to lead Lámh Dhearg to victory over Cargin in Sunday’s Antrim Senior Football Championship final at Corrigan Park.
The Hannahstown men face a huge challenge in, not only attempting to dethrone the current county champions, but to recover from their epic semi-final trilogy against Portglenone.
The sides drew their first game at Creggan before their replay at The Dub last week ended in a free-kick shoot-out at the end of extra-time.
However, Antrim Chairman Ciarán McCavana halted proceedings on the ground of player welfare and ordered a second replay, which went ahead on Monday night at Ballymena.
A brace of goals from former Antrim star Paddy Cunningham helped the Red Hands finally get the better of Casement’s on a score of 2-8 to 0-8.
Cargin, meanwhile have had a much more straight-forward path the decider, beating Rossa 1-14 to 0-12 in the quarter-finals before scoring an impressive 2-10 to 1-8 over St Gall’s in the last four.
Speaking to Belfast Media Group prior to the first drawn game against Portglenone, Finucane spoke of his desire to successfully juggle his commitments as he bids to lead Lámh Dhearg to a second Antrim SFC crown in three years.
“It is a fairly surreal and busy year,” said Finucane. “I was genuinely worried at the outset that football might take a hit, but it hasn’t. I’m delighted with it – I’d kick a ball all day long if I could! I’m glad that it hasn’t been impacted and I was able to play in the league and be a part of the team for the Championship.”
