St Mary’s young guns have no hang-ups about long wait for Joe
ST Mary’s captain Niall Eccles and his young colleagues have no real hang-ups about 2003 or the club’s long wait for Joe Ward, but they want to set the record straight regardless.
‘It was a long time ago and it’s too long for this club to go without a Joe Ward and hopefully this is the team to bring it back.
‘But when they last won I was only one year-old! Even ‘03 I can’t remember as clearly as some of the other guys. I do know how much it hurt the club, especially in a replay in the circumstances that they lost it. So we’re definitely out to redeem that.’
Eccles is a very young captain but he has led by example with his performances and has already lifted silverware this season, which he feels was a big boost for the club.
‘It has been a bit up a down. A couple of bad league results knocked us back at the start, but we always felt we could get a good run going. Thankfully the Sheelan Cup came along, which was our first senior trophy in a long time. We hit the ground running in the championship and hopefully we can keep it up. It’s been stop-start, but it’s great to be still playing football at this time of year.
‘We’re just taking it one game at a time and not getting ahead of ourselves. We’ve come though difficult games, but Sean O’Mahony’s will be no different and this is their second year. We’ll approach it the same as any other game.’
Mary’s semi-final win over Dreadnots will give them plenty of confidence, but Eccles feels O’Mahony’s will pose a different set of problems.
‘The early goal was a blow but there was a long way to go. With kicking all those wides you start to wonder, but I knew they’d come good and I don’t think the Dreadnots could really cope with our forward line. It was a great game of football to be involved in, and I think we got the result we deserved.
‘Aside from the two goals they only kicked one point in the firsthalf. In the second we were under
a bit of pressure, but thankfully we stood tall and got there in the end.
‘We played the O’Mahony’s a few weeks ago in the league and we got a taste for what they’re like. They have good forwards and they’re in their second final, so that’s no fluke, they’re obviously a good team. They have fast forwards but we have fast defenders and we’ll be up for the challenge and we’re looking forward to it.’
Eccles feels it’s impossible to completely shy away from the pre-final hype around town and he’d dearly love to be bringing Joe Ward back to town on Sunday evening.
‘13 years is too long for a club with the quality of players here. This is my first involvement and the buzz of it all is great to be a part of. The town is really getting behind us.
‘We’ll concentrate on the football, obviously, but you can’t avoid the buzz around town and it’s great to be part of it.
‘Being captain is only an extra bonus. It’s all about the team and we’ve put in an extra effort this year. We’ve been going for a solid 12 months now and I want to do it for the boys, never mind lifting the trophy.
‘There’s boys around here a long time who haven’t got what they deserved and that’s who we’re trying to win it for and we feel we can.’