Former Armagh and New York attacker Johnny Murtagh is on the verge of re-joining his native Crossmaglen.

Murtagh is returning to Cross' after playing his club football in Dublin with Parnells for the past few seasons. Two years ago, he sought to play inter-county for Louth, but his transfer was rejected on the grounds that he stated in his transfer application that his county was Armagh when he moved from Cross' to Parnells.

Speaking to the Newry Democrat, Oisin McConville - who was last week appointed joint-manager of Crossmaglen along with his former club and county team-mate John McEntee - revealed that Murtagh has applied to transfer back to his home club.

"Johnny Murtagh has applied for a transfer, I'm not sure if it has gone through or not, but if he is fit and he is willing to put in as much effort as everyone else then he is a player of note that we would obviously be interested in," he said.

McConville also expressed his desire to have Francis Hanratty - who famously scored a brace of goals in Crossmaglen's 2012 All-Ireland club SFC final replay victory over Garrycastle - on board in 2014.

"Franny is a player we have obviously got to talk to and see if he is interested in coming back or not. If he is then the door will be certainly open for him because he is a quality player. At club level you have got to take everyone with you as we learned this year.

"When you saw Cross' this year when we had so many injuries we know that we are going to need every individual and them going at a decent pace.

"Dublin won an All-Ireland this year because they had a good squad and Ballinderry won the Ulster championship for the same reason, and I think Kilcoo beat Cross' because they had a better squad."

The new Cross' management has already been boosted by the news that regular full back Paul Kernan is on his way back from Australia. Tweet

Most Read Stories