MARCUS CAVAROLI Mark hoping higher standard in league will stand to Glyde in final

TWELVE months ago Glyde Rangers were a Division 3 team and their Junior Championship decider with Glen Emmets proved a bridge too far - albeit by a single point.

Now the tables have turned - quite literally - and it’s the Tallanstown men with the advantage of having played intermediate league football as they prepare for next Sunday’s final against Dundalk Young Irelands at St Brigid’s Park.

Yes, the town side blazed a trail through Division 3 this year to finish top of the pile with a huge points difference, but after a difficult start Glyde held their own in the second tier and manager Mark Gilsenan hopes they will reap the benefits of playing at a higher level come Sunday afternoon.

Looking ahead to the clash for the Christy Bellew Cup, Gilsenan reflected: ‘I suppose there were two targets for us. After losing the final last year, we wanted to give ourselves another chance of getting back out of Junior, and surviving in Division 2 of the league was a big target as well.

‘It’s so far so good! We probably started slow and took a while to get used to Division 2 again. We played a couple of tough teams who were in the Senior Championship at the start and we lost our first five games, but then we beat Roche and kicked on from there, and if we’d won our last game we would have been close to the play-offs.

‘I think we beat Roche just before the championship started, so that was a good boost.’

Roche Emmets also provided the opposition in Glyde’s first match in their group and they edged home by three - having led by eight points at half-time - beforee seeing off Dowdallshill and then overcoming g Wolfe Tones in the quarter-finals.

Lannleire proved tougher opposition in the semis and, just as against Roche, timely goals helped see e Glyde through with three points to spare. pare.

‘There was a long break between the quarter- and semi-final,’ Gilsenan recalled, ‘and we were worried about playing challenge matches because you get injuries. Dunleer had their play-off against Glen Emmets in between and that stood to them, and we were well off the pace until the last 15 minutes.

‘That sort of performance would not be good enough in the final.’

It’s a point not lost on Gilsenan that his team find themselves in the same position as Glen Emmets were 12 months ago, preparing to face opposition plying their trade in a lower grade in the league.

‘Irelands are doing what we did last year,’ he agreed. ‘We drew our first game and they lost theirs and won every game for the rest of the year, and we are hoping it will turn out like that again [Division 2 club winning the championship].

‘Irelands are a very good team. They play to a system and play it very well. It’s a fairly defensive game, and if they play that way it might come down to a low-scoring game and who wants it the most.

‘We’re in good shape. We’ll try to play our own game and the boys are looking forward to it. Last year there was only two weeks between the semi and fina l and the flags [around Tallanstown] went up quickly, but there mightn’t be so much hype this time.’

On the injury front, the chief concern is the availability or otherwise of Conor McCullough who pulled up in the warm-up prior to the semi-final with a quad injury and didn’t feature in that game.

Gilsenan said it was a ‘race against time’ to get the corner back fit to feature in the decider, but otherwise he should have a full deck to select from.

Ultimately, the result next Sunday might depend on whether Glyde Rangers have learned lessons from what happened in last year’s ddecider againagainst unfancied fancunfancied Glen EmEmmets. Asked ababout his mememories of thathat day at The Grove, GilsGilsenan resporesponded: ‘I prefer nnot to think about it!

‘I remember wwe had a good first half, got into our rhythm and were three points ahead, but I just think the whole occasion got to the lads and they were a bit drained in the second half.

‘Mark O’Brien went off injured, which was a big blow, and maybe we didn’t have the experience and the legs on the bench that we might have this year.

‘We had a chance at the end to bring it to a replay, but it wasn’t to be and it was very disappointing.

‘Hopefully we’ve learned a good bit since then and we can put things right.’

Irelands are a very good team. They play to a system and play it very well.