With the final training session before Saaturday’s big game completed on Wednesday night, Enniskillen Gaels manager Simon Bradley says they have the utmost respect for their Kilcoo opponents but will not fear them when they play off for a place in the Ulster final.
“We definitely respect them,” he said. “They’re All Ireland champions, full of quality players, they’ve won nine championships in the last ten years, so we respect them. As a football team, as a group of players, you can’t go into a game fearing somebody because that will paralyse you, that’s the one thing that we don’t want, we don’t want to be paralysed.
“If we get beat, and we put in a hell of a performance then you accept that but if we go in and freeze you’re just full of regrets and that’s what we want to avoid. We want to see where our best gets us on Saturday night, then we can move forward from that.”
Against Gowna in the quarter-final, Enniskillen could’ve frozen when they went three points down in added time – but they didn’t. One player in particular who really stood up and was counted was 21-year-old Conor Love. ‘Curly’ as he’s often referred to showed a calmness beyond his years.
This weekend the Gaels corner forward will be a marked man, there’s no doubt about that, and Bradley is hoping he can once again perform;
“Most good corner forwards are confidence players, they embrace that kind of challenge and I’m just glad that Conor has that type of personality. Conor’s not going to hide, he’ll take it on full face.
“I’m looking forward to seeing how he copes with being well and truly targeted but it’s something he’s going to have to get used to because probably every game he plays for the next seven, eight, nine years, he’s going to have to deal with it. It’s something he’ll get better at dealing with but he’s taking his first steps to dealing with it on Saturday night.”
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