A promising Maree-Oranmore outfit collected a second successive Galway FA U21 title.
Last week's victory over Salthill Devon, a 10th win in 11 Maree-Oranmore games ensured silverware was gleaned.
With a number of players already contributing for Brendan O'Connor's Maree-Oranmore first team, this is an encouraging time for the club according to U21 captain Shane Cox.
"The underage lads in the club are getting better every year," Cox says. "The players coming through will definitely be getting into the junior squad."
O'Connor is carrying out impressive work developing Maree-Oranmore and Cox thinks more players in the club will progress.
"I think since Brendan has come in the team has improved," Cox replies.
"I know last year with the juniors we didn't do as well as we thought we would. This year, he had the year to look at us, and we got new players in which made the team stronger."
Progress is being made according to Cox. "Last year we would lose the big games to Salthill and Athenry, but this year we drew with Salthill 2-2 and Athenry a few weeks ago we only lost 2-1," he says.
"People were expecting it to be a bigger loss, but we have trained very hard, everyone is getting better and better with every game. In a few years I think we will be fighting to win the league with Mervue, Salthill, and Athenry."
The U21 triumph was a boost with Maree-Oranmore impressing throughout the competition.
"We got a few new signings this year and our team got way stronger," Cox says about the U21 campaign. "In the majority of the games we were scoring very high and conceding very little.
"When it wasn't there people mightn't have wanted to go up to junior level, thinking it might be too physical. Now that the U21 league is there they can play that for two years, get stronger, progress into junior then. They will find it easier having played in the U21 league."
**Listen to the full interview with Maree-Oranmore U21 captain Shane Cox on this week's 'Cian on Sport' podcast available on Soundcloud, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.
