“It’s 18 cup finals we have this year not 18 league games, and the lads know that if you get cut a drift early on from the pack you are probably not going to make it back.” That’s how new Snugboro United manager Mick Wallace sees this years Super League campaign for his side and most of the others in the league, it is all about survival. The pragmatic as always Wallace knows that it is going to be a hard fight to stay in the top division with four teams going down this season, but he is ready for the battle. “Being realistic, you’ve got Ballina Town, Westport, Iorras Aontaithe, and maybe Manulla who’ll be scrapping it out at the top. The rest of us are fighting to survive in the top flight.” When he took the job he knew that this is what the season was going to be like and Wallace said he laid it out to his squad on the very first day. “I said it to the players straight off, that we are going to be in the thick of it. But we’ve got great numbers out training and everyone’s working hard. I’m disappointed that we didn’t take the points of Fahy Rovers last week, I thought we did enough to win the game against a very tough physical side, we need to be winning these games.” This weekend Snugboro United will open their home account for the season when they host Ballina Town who have six points from two games in the bag already. Wallace knows it is going to a be a big ask for his side to stop Brendan Kenny’s men. “They’re the league champions, and if someone came along now and said here, you can have a point from this game, I’d take the hand off them. There a quality side, but we’ll go out and give them a game and not let our heads drop.”
Keeping heads up when results go against you is something that Wallace thinks will be very important. “Before you could see teams had this attitude of letting their heads drop when things went against them and they lost a few games. But I don’t want to see that happen this year, every game is going to be a cup final and we have to be up for it or we are going to end up going down.”
Last weekend saw Snugboro United’s visitors for this Sunday Ballina Town hold off Manulla to win 2-1 thanks to a late Derek Tansey goal. This Sunday Manulla will be hosting local rivals Ballyheane who themselves lost out to newly promoted Swinford thanks to a last minute goal from Paul Convey in Quigley Park. Castlebar Celtic who went down to at home to Straide and Foxford United last Sunday night face into a long trip to Iorras this weekend, knowing that another loss on Sunday would see them slip deeper into relegation trouble even though the season would be only three rounds old. New boys Swinford who grabbed their first win of the season late on against Ballyheane will host Westport United, if they can perform as well as they did on the opening day against Ballina Town Swinford could nick a point out of this one. The final game in the Super League sees Straide and Foxford host Fahy Rovers, the side from Green Road shook off their disappointment in losing the Connacht Cup semi-final two weeks ago to beat Celtic last Sunday, while Fahy Rovers picked up a point in their opening game against Snugboro United.
