Search Results for 'Derek Tansey'

“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.”

Mayo will make the long trip north this weekend to take on the Inishowen league in their opening game in this season’s Oscar Traynor Trophy. For the second year in a row Castlebar Celtic manager Declan Kilkelly will be taking charge of the side and after narrowly missing out on qualifiying from the group stages last year Kilkelly will be hoping to at least improve on that this season. This year’s competition sees Mayo in a three team group with this weekend’s opponents the Inishowen League and the Galway League and with only one team to qualify for the next round of the competition.

The Mayo League will see the curtain come down on another season this Sunday (bar one or two re-fixed games), with a number of titles and promotion spots still up for grabs. In the Super League Ballina Town have their destiny in their own hands and on Sunday at 2.30pm on the Pete Murray pitch in Belleek Park, they can wrap up the title with a win over Fahy Rovers. Ballina Town have been leading the charge over the 17 games so far this season, with Westport United nipping at their heels. A win for Brendan Kenny’s side will see them reach 44 points, enough to claim the title as Westport can only reach a maximum of 43 with their two games left this season. They play Iorras Aontaithe this Sunday and have a re-fixed game against Snugboro United also to play, but if Kenny’s men do what is expected of them Westport’s re-fixed game will be inconsequential to the title race.