St. Patrick’s will be marked as many people’s favourites to add the Junior Championship to their Division Two League title this year.

They were impressive in the league, which saw them rack some high scores and return to Division One.

But their Manager, Paul Hasson, is quick to play down the favourites tag and knows that anything can happen on the day in Championship football.

“You can’t take anything for granted. Championship is championship. You know the proximity of the two clubs so there will be no love lost. Both teams will be wanting to go out to get the upper hand,” he said.

“You have the safety net of losing the first game and another chance, but we won’t be going in looking like that. We will be looking to try and win every game.”

Preparation has been going well since the league final victory over Derrylin as Hasson gets his side ready for Newtown’s challenge: “We have upped the training considerably.

“We know we have the footballing skills honed and they now know how we want to play, how we’ve set up. Those lads have gone places even since the Derrylin final I don’t think they realised was even possible themselves.

“Training has been going extremely well this last couple of weeks.”

Looking at Newtown, Hasson knows the dangers of facing a team coming in as underdogs and expects them to have done their homework on his side.

“Newtownbutler will be coming in under the radar. I loved teams I was involved in coming in under the radar.

“You can’t underestimate Newtown. They will have their homework done on us and hopefully we have a couple of game plans we expect Newtown to set up that we’ve been practising in training so hopefully we will be fit to counteract what Newtownbutler bring.

“From day one, they have been loud and clear that all their focus this year was on the championship.

“They are going to try and bring it to fruition next Saturday. Hopefully we can keep that winning mentality because it is hard to beat.”

Hasson’s opposite number, Darren Chapman, is expecting to pick from a full squad for the first time this year as an extensive injury list hampered their league campaign.

And he will need all his players against formidable opposition: “It’s going to be very tough. They have just got promoted back to Division One and they are the form team in Division Two.

“We have had a very stop-start league campaign but that was influenced by the unusually high injury list that we’ve had all season.”

With all players available, Chapman is confident his side will prove a match for any side in the championship.

“If we perform, we can match anybody in the Junior championship. We go in quietly confident that we can do what needs to be done to win the game.

“I think the winners of the game will be the team whose defence comes out on top because we would have a strong forward line as well. So, it will be about which defence comes out on top and who wins more possession in the middle of the park.

“But it’s winter football, it’s a derby, it’s all going to be on the day, and it is all going to be about appetite.

“It’s probably going to be wet, the ground is going to be soft – that’s a great leveller in football. It will be about appetite on the day, and I just hope we can perform.”