BATTLE

Hickey has his soldiers prepared

IT certainly isn’t David v Golaith but James Hickey knows that Carnew are not fancied to topple Tinahely on Sunday.

He also knows that the hurlers weren’t tipped to best Bray either though so he’ll take such notions with a pinch of salt. Having finished third in the group stage, Carnew knocked out Coolkenno and Laragh to earn their place in Sunday’s final and Hickey is hoping that they’ve one more massive performance in them.

“We’re set for it. We’re all good and looking forward to it. We’re delighted to be there and looking forward to the game now.

“We’re under no illusions about what we’re facing into. It’s going to be a huge battle and a massive test but you can’t win it if you’re not in and we’re there and we’re going to give it our best shot and see where that takes us.

“The lads have battled all year against all the odds in hurling and football and they’re a good group and we’ve put processes in place since the beginning of the year to maximise the potential in the group. It’s paying off for us. The results are bearing fruit because we’re in the hurling final and the football final so look, it’s a great time for us. There’s nothing won yet and we’ve two massive weekends coming up and we’ll embrace the two of them.”

Tinahely have developed a habit of scoring goals and scoring them by the truckload. It is something that Hickey cannot ignore but he hopes to have Tinahely worried rather than spending time worrying about the potential of green flags.

“You can get bogged down in that and we’ve been keeping an eye on them and they’re a good side with a good man over them and we know the task ahead of us but at the same time, we’ll probably focus more on us and ourselves and what we’ll bring to the table more so than what they will because you can get lost in that sometimes.

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