‘Bosco’ full of praise for his young soldiers
REACTION
AFTER a gripping encounter with Roscommon which saw Wicklow level the game in added time to rescue a point, Wicklow manager Jonathan ‘Bosco’ O’Neill is viewing it as a positive result but is feeling they may have been able to get more out of it.
“We were lucky to get the draw but we’re disappointed that we didn’t get the win, we got a chance or two at the end to get scores, but we’ll take the draw,” he said.
This is the fourth competitive outing this year for the Garden County hurlers, they suffered two heavy losses in the league to Donegal and London, and a battering against Kildare in the Kehoe Cup (while Casey O’Brien was manager), and this improvement has come about with a lot of good work going on behind the scenes.
“Training is very positive, we’re there every Wednesday and Friday, we keep asking for honesty and the lads are being honest and showing up, we keep saying if you keep showing up and give 100 per cent it’ll show on the field eventually,” he said.
“This is out fourth week (since Jonathan became Wicklow manager) we keep saying ‘stepping stones’ and we keep going forward, in another few more weeks we’ll be a bit better, a bit stronger and a bit fitter,” he added.
Team cohesion is a vital part of any sport, as a lack of chemistry and understanding can make a side fall apart, lack of workrate can also bring about heavy defeats, but it appears from this showing that the young team are beginning to fully mould and work for each other, ‘Bosco’ couldn’t pick out any one player that stood above the rest.
“The whole backline put in a crazy performance and were in front of their men every time, the same as the likes of Davy (Maloney), Luke (Evans) and Seanie (Germaine) in the forwards, you couldn’t pick any one person as it was just a team performance.”
‘Bosco’ did praise goalkeeper Conor McNally for how he has stepped up since being given the captaincy. At the young age of 26, Conor has given years of service to Wicklow hurling and looks the perfect leader to take over this roll from Nicky Rackard winning captain John Henderson who opted to go travelling this year.
Wicklow still sit bottom of the Allianz Hurling League 2B table and will be facing table toppers, Derry at home next in round four on March 10 in what be serious test to see if this positive turn and improvement will continue.