Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
PRESENCE MAXIE SWAIN
By
CONOR Crossan insists Newington need no motivation ahead of the 125th staging of the Toals Steel Cup final tomorrow – with a chance to leave their mark on history the prize.
The Ton boss is preparing for his second Yuletide showpiece in just three seasons, having led the north Belfast men to glory on Christmas Day two years ago, and against the same opposition too.
But if that day was particularly poignant for him, with much of the build-up focusing on how he could finally seize what had long been his late father’s dream, this one sees Crossan in a more relaxed and business-like mood.
The landscape has shifted somewhat from then; Newington are not the out-of-sorts underdogs they were 24 months ago when few people, least of all the bookmakers, gave them much hope against Davy Dorrian’s exuberant and rampant Linfield Swifts. The Premier Intermediate League outfit look much more confident and solid these days, and having been here before, Crossan is wiser to the pressures, even if changes to his playing staff in the intervening years means the same cannot necessarily be said of them.
Of the team who overcame the Wee Blues back then, only four or five are likely to feature tomorrow morning, yet Crossan reckons the magnitude of the occasion, and the opportunity to own a slice of local football history, means it will be a fired up, pumped up Newington who take to the pitch.
“A lot of the talking has already been done,” said Crossan.
“I will go in there before the final and say very few words. We’ve trained Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday, Monday, and a lot of the talking is done throughout the sessions and in a couple of team meetings.
“So on the day itself, I won’t have to say too much, I will try to get them to go out there and enjoy it, play the game, not the occasion as they say, and hopefully we give a better performance than we did in the semi-final.”
Indeed, ever since a highly-rated Belfast Celtic were ousted in the last four, minds have been focused on tomorrow and how Newington set about plundering Intermediate’s football’s most coveted prize for a second time in three years.
“On the day, the players can freeze,” said Crossan. “During our semi-final, I thought we froze because a lot of the players knew each other and I thought we froze that day. “But hopefully that doesn’t happen in the final. They are a good side, Linfield are a good footballing side, but hopefully it’s a good game this year and hopefully the green of Newington will come out on top.
“It was the biggest achievement of my football career, so to reach it a second time… I always said to the players, you only get one crack at this here, and I told the players a couple of weeks ago at the semi-final, ‘I told you lies, you’ve got another crack at this’.
“I didn’t think for one minute when I first started out managing, that I would manage a team in the Steel & Sons Cup, let alone win the Steel & Sons Cup, but to get into the final two years out of three, it’s great to be a part of the team and the squad which has done that.
“It’s took a lot of effort from everybody, I’m very, very pleased with that.”