Castlebar Celtic will be pushing on for a place in the Newstalk Cup semi-final over the next six days, when they entertain both Sligo Rovers and Galway United in the group stages of the competition. Declan Kilkelly’s men have Sligo Rovers first up on Sunday evening at 7pm, with Galway United making the trip north on Wednesday evening in a rearranged fixture. It’s a hectic few days but Celtic manager Declan Kilkelly is hoping that his side will face into another tie the following weekend in the cup semi-final. “It’s good to have the games, we’ve had a break since the Finn Harps game in the league cup because the Galway game was put off, but I’d rather we didn’t. The semi-finals of the cup are down for the weekend after the Galway game and we’ll be looking to be there.”
In their first game in the competition, Celtic saw off Finn Harps A league side, and a win on Sunday will set them up nicely for Wednesday’s game. “If we win against Sligo we put ourselves in a good position to make the semi-finals. But Sligo will be hard to beat, you never know what kind of side they will have they could have a few lads from their first team squad with them. We played them in a friendly a while ago and beat them 3-1 but you can read nothing into that.”
Celtic’s last game was in the league cup proper where they were beaten by Finn Harps first team 3-1 and it gave them a chance to see the standard they want to be at and play at next season. “It showed the lads how good you have to be to move up to the next level. I’m happy that were playing well at our own level and we have the squad to compete at it. Salthill Devon went up last year and they are struggling a bit up there, we have the squad for this level, but if we do make it out of the league we will have to have to look at the squad again.”
Celtic will welcome back James Minogue to the squad after almost a year out, but new signing goalkeeper Danny O’Leary could be out for a while. “Danny is going to get a scan done and we have to wait and see how that goes for him, were hoping that Robert Hennelly will be able to come in for us on Sunday evening.” To see how Celtic got on against Sligo Rovers log on to www.advertiser.ie/mayo on Sunday night.
