Wicklow will fancy chances Socially distant!
Ladies boss is confident
WICKLOW senior ladies football manager, Mark Murnaghan, has said that his team will fancy their chances in their year’s All-Ireland Junior Football Championship, although he warned that they will not be looking past their games against Fermanagh and Carlow in the group stage.
Last week, the draws for the 2020 national championships were completed, with Wicklow – who have won the junior title on two occasions (1990, 2011) – being drawn alongside Carlow and 2019’s beaten finalists, Fermanagh. The other group will consist of Derry, Limerick, and Antrim.
The top two teams in each group will meet in the semi-finals.
Reacting to the draw, Murnaghan said that he and his team had faith that they would challenge in the competition, although he warned that their focus would be fixated on the task at hand in the group stage.
‘I have to be confident. I have to have belief in the players and in the squad,’ he told the Wicklow People.
‘They are going to be judged on club form over the next couple of weeks. They can’t take their foot off the pedal and they will be fighting for places. I have to be confident but the first game in the group is all that we will be looking at, for now anyway.
‘As I said before, there is no easy draw. We have Carlow and Fermanagh. Carlow is going to be a derby, so form is out the window. We haven’t played them in a while, so we don’t know a whole lot about them. Fermanagh were least year’s All-Ireland beaten finalists. In my book, they’d be one of the favourites. They will be two tough games. We won’t look past the group stage.’
On August 8, the county’s senior club championship will get underway, with the final pencilled in for September 19, while the intermediate championship will run from August 9 to September 19, and the junior ‘A’ championship from August 16 to October 17. Finally, junior ‘B’ is scheduled to carry through August 9 to October 4.
While his squad will not change all that much from the one he had during the league campaign, he said that he will be open-minded towards players competing for their clubs.
‘I will be going to games open-minded. A player with their club is completely different than with the county set-up. They are more comfortable.
‘They’re playing in their own environment. If there is a player from outside the squad that is absolutely playing brilliant for a couple of games, it will come into the equation.
‘Players can pick up injuries, anything can happen, but I am happy with the squad I have now. Please, God, they players I have in the squad are fit and healthy, and one of two others who have proven that they can play at the highest level.’