The sponsorship of Gaelic Life and the contribution of TG 4 who broadcast last Tuesday night's draw live and who will be screening 4 matches of this year's competition live has breathed new life into the Dr McKenna cup as evidenced by the big turnout of managers, players and media at last Tuesday nights launch in the Armagh City Hotel. Following the draw for the three groups, each of which includes one of the three universities there was a great air of the enthusiasm about the prospects for this years competition which will be run off in its integrity during the month of January. People like Tyrone manager Mickey Harte, Cavan manager Donal Keoghan, Armagh manager Peter McDonnell and Fermanagh manager Malachy O'Rourke along with Paddy Tally from St Mary's College, Paddy Crozier from Derry and Adrian McGuckian from Jordanstown all spoke off how important the revamped competition was for teams preparing for the new season. Speaking on behalf of the sponsors Dominic McClements told the gathering that their idea in sponsoring the competition was to "broaden the coverage of gaelic games in keeping with our mission statement for Gaelic Life" which was "to enhance the active coverage of gaelic games in the province". In the draw for the groupings Monaghan in fact were last out of the hat and therefore joining section C along with Queens University Belfast, Antrim and Cavan which makes for a very interesting section. Speaking to The Northern Standard team manager Seamus McEnaney said "it was a nice group with a situation where Cavan are a team we will be meeting on February 15th in the National Football League. With that in mind they are probably a team that you would probably prefer not to have in the group but like all of the managers who fielded questions from the media and M. C. for the night, Jarlath Burns, Seamus McEnaney was "looking forward to the competition" and would be using it to "maybe find a couple of new players and get ready for the National Football League. Our meeting Cavan is a local derby game and there will be great interest in that and the McKenna cup is a competition where we can give a mixture of players games and we can blood new players". Another element of interest in Monaghan's group is that former county player and former selector with Monaghan Bernie Murray is on the Queen's University team management which will make for that little extra dimension when these sides meet in the second round. Like most of the other counties Monaghan will be conceding a number of players to the universities but the manager didn't seem to mid that or think it would be a problem. "We will have probably three players with Jordanstown and we could have three or four with DCU in the O'Byrne Cup but I have no issue with the players being with the universities because playing with the colleges gives a lot players more games and it also helps keep up that winning mentality that we need. We are going out to win every game in this competition and we will be looking to qualify for the semi-final". The question of the much talked about players strike affecting the subsidiary competitions of which the McKenna Cup is one was not brought up during Tuesday evenings media briefing and launch but it is something that is foremost in managers minds. "We will not be thinking of the players strike", Seamus McEnaney told The Northern Standard, "we will be getting ready to play in the McKenna Cup but every manager, every inter county manager is looking for a resolution to this particular situation. There are not very many people who disagree with inter county players being grant aided and quite honestly I think the players are entitled to that. The money is there, the GAA knows the money is there and the GPA wants the money distributed, the big question is to get a vehicle to do that or come up with a mechanism to achieve that. That really is the problem facing everyone but I'm confident that this will be sorted out in the next 10 days or so". It looks like Monaghan's first game will be against Cavan, with round 2 against QUB and round 3 against Antrim with venues and dates to be finalised by Ulster Council CCC. The full draw for the Dr McKenna Cup but was as follows: Group A: St Mary's College Belfast, Fermanagh, Armagh, Derry. Group B: Jordanstown, Tyrone, Down, Donegal. Group C.: Queens University Belfast, Antrim, Cavan, Monaghan. Semi Finals: Winner Group B. v Winner Group C. Winner Group A v Highest Runner-up. It is planned to start the Dr McKenna Cup on Sunday, January 6th with round 2 on Wednesday, January 9th and round 3 on January 13th. The semi-finals are provisionally pencilled in for January 18th and January 19th with the final on January 26th although those dates may change due to a number of requests from counties who have other commitments mid-January. Tweet

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