Momentum and consistency the key to Mochta’s run to decider

UNEARTHING a bit of consistency and momentum has been the key to St Mochta’s summer odyssey, according to manager Seamus McGahon.

But did he envisage an intermediate final when he took the reins of his hometown club?

‘To be honest no, but we’ve always felt this group of players were capable of it. Over the last few years they’ve probably been selling themselves short. They’ve had one big performance to get out of a group or into a semi-final, but then lose the next time out. So there’s been a bit of consistency or maybe just a bit of momentum missing.’

Shielding players from the hype of a final is often one of the manager’s trickiest assignments in the run-in to a final, but Seamus feels that supporters deserve to enjoy the build-up and he trusts his players to stay focused.

‘It’s a tight-knit village and they’re football mad, even when things are going badly, so you can imagine what it’s like in the build-up to a final. They’re great supporters and they deserve this.

‘The players are fully focused on the game. They realise it’s still there to be won. We have a good mis in the squad. We’re lucky enough to have eight or nine who played in 2009 and are still around the 28 mark and then we have a great crop of younger lads who are no more than 23 or 24. Those young lads are buzzing and the older lads are letting them know what to expect.

‘We have lads coming back too like Ciaran Byrne and then Danny Kindlon, Cormac Callan and Brendan Duff, were all away for the summer, so any time you get lads back like that it’s a big boost.

‘Obviously, getting Ciaran back is a great boost. It will take him a bit of time to re-adjust, it’s a different ball and even a different positional sense, but we all know he has the tools be a top footballer.’

But St Fechin’s have a few top footballers too and after suffering two defeats to Eugene Kudge’s side already this season, Seamus knows his team have it all to do.

‘The Fechin’s are a good side, we’ve played them twice and they’ve won both, so we know what we’re up against. Any team that has players like Ronan Holcroft, Bevan Duffy or Niall Devlin are going to be hard to stop.

‘We’ve played them a good few times over the years so we’ve gone through a couple of things that we need to do and we do feel we let ourselves down a little bit against them this year, so there’s hopefully a bit of room for improvement.

‘We just hope we can put in a performance that justifies getting there and it will take a big performance to win it.

‘Senior football is the big prize. It would be great for the older lads who know what it’s like to be slogging away in junior, while the younger lads only know intermediate football. But it would be great to win a trophy for the supporters and the people who give up their time all year round

‘We have good minor and U-16 teams coming through so the hope is that you can get up to senior and those younger lads coming through will strengthen you further,’ he adds.