Westville Hotel Senior Football League Div 1
CLAIMING the scalp of the reigning county champions Erne Gaels can only enhance the development of Derrygonnelly’s young players, their manager Sean Flanagan insists.
The Harps went clear at the top of the Division One table with a five point victory over visitors Belleek last midweek, Gareth McGovern with the all important second half goal, before the side was afforded a walkover a few days later over basement strugglers Belcoo.
The results leave Derrygonnelly sitting pretty on maximum points as we close in on the business end of the campaign and Sean Flanagan admits that getting the better of the Gaels represented an early psychological boost for his squad, albeit there is still much to play for.
“We had a good tussle in the semi-final of the Championship last year and we felt with a bit of the rub of the green we could have gone through but fair play to them they went on and won it. They are a good solid team and provide the benchmark for us. It was up to our young boys to see if we could compete against them and in fairness they did that rightly.
“The boys are in great shape and they have a lot of work done. They were still going well at the end after a tough game in the heat.”
The downside for any successful senior club is that they are going to be missing a sizeable representation of county men during the initial stages of the season, but Flanagan has been pleased with the contribution of the stand-ins over the past few months.
“Like every year the start of the season is just a bit stop start when you are bringing players in. In fairness we had plenty of boys stepping up for us at the start of the year when the four or five county boys were away.
“We have another two or three who are not back from injury yet, like Rían McGovern. But this last couple of weeks it is starting to come together and all the boys are putting in a fair shift.”
The Harps stalwart also feels that from this point in the season, all clubs will be upping their preparations with the Championship now looming large on the horizon.
“You see results coming in over this last while which might raise an eyebrow but you don’t know what sort of side clubs are able to field at this time of year, with boys away on holidays and other factors. Men have the right obviously to take themselves off for a break for a couple of weeks and enjoy it. But it is only from now on that squads really start to come together.”