But for Bell it’s
back to the drawing board
by Simon McGeady, Inishowen
Independent
Clonmany Shamrocks clinched their first Jackie
Crossan Premier Division league title in six years
with a 2-1 win over Redcastle United at Foyle Park
on Sunday, a championship win their first year
management duo branded ‘the sweetest league win.’
As ex-players, Martin Cavanagh and Sean Devlin both
know what it’s like to lift the league title, but
this year’s win for them was the best ever.
“I think this one is sweeter because we were up
against it all year. We didn’t have the best of
starts, but once we got ourselves back in
contention, we held the nerve, said Cavanagh,
speaking at Foyle Park shortly after Sunday’s win.
“This was billed as a league game, but at the end of
the day it was a cup final and came down to who
wanted it more. We have boys today who are very
emotional, it means so much to them.
“Out of a panel of 14 boys today, 13 are Clonmany
boys [the exception being Michael Byrne, who opened
the scoring on Sunday]. We don’t want to harp on
about it all the time, but for us that’s our biggest
achievement. We started the day with two 17-year old
local boys, Paddy [Doherty] and Stephen
[McLaughlin]. This shows young players what can be
achieve playing for your local team.”
Cavanagh’s coaching partner, Sean Devlin felt that
Clonmany, who have three trophies in the bag and are
on for an historic quintuple, have not got the
recognition they’ve deserved this year.
“Our football has been very good all year, but we
haven’t got credit for it. Redcastle have been on
the back page of most papers, all year, maybe two or
three pages at a time, waffling on about what they
can do. We’ve been dark horses, sitting in the
background saying nothing. There’s a lot of things
been said about this team, other people were
waffling on all year, talking us down, but we are
happy with the way things are structured at our
club.”
Cavanagh added that this win makes up for narrowly
missing out on the league in the past few years.
Last year the lost the league to Redcastle on the
final day.
“We just didn’t perform in that game last year, but
we learned our lesson. We became more relaxed today
and knew what to expect [from Redcastle].”
Whatever happens in their remaining Knockalla Cup
and North West Champions League fixtures, it’s been
a great season for Clonmany Shamrocks.
Redcastle manager Bryan Bell felt the side’s lost
the league in the aftermath of their FAI Junior Cup
quarter final exit.
“We know where we lost the league. We didn’t lose it
today. Against Carrick United we were only a free
kick away and they went on to win the FAI Junior
Cup.
After that match some of our players found it very
difficult to accept the defeat.
I look at the two goals we conceded today and they
are not goals we normally concede. We are definitely
not as fit as we were last year and there have been
things going on behind the scenes that have
contributed to that. Hopefully those problems have
been put to bed and we can start afresh next year.”
Nevertheless, Bell felt that his side were the
better team for most of the game, but didn’t get the
breaks.
“There is no doubt that for the first 40 minutes of
the game Redcastle were the better team, we worked
hard on moving the ball and moving their two centre
halves around, but we just didn’t get the rub of the
green.
“Clonmany play a certain style, they are very direct
and they use their fitness to get up and down the
pitch. It’s black and white to me where we lost that
game and we have to put it right for next season.
We’ve won the league these last two years, third
time wasn’t to be.
“We raised the bar in Inishowen football as far as I
am concerned, regarding preparation. Clonmany have
raised that another notch this season and now we
have to come back and match them.”
The Redcastle boss, who also manages Inishowen,
added that he would have no bother raising the
spirit of his players ahead of this weekend’s Oscar
Traynor semi-final. |
