Corey relieved to see his side stay in Division 3 ahead of London clash
RELIEF was the over-riding emotion for Sligo manager Cathal Corey following his side’s narrow win over Derry on Sunday.
The win was enough to move the Yeats County away from the relegation trap-door, with the Ulster men facing Division 4 life in 2019 instead.
Speaking to the Sligo Champion in the aftermath of the contest, the Tyrone native admitted that being relegated to the bottom tier of the Allianz League would have been a disaster for him in his first term.
“We’re over the moon”, he beamed. “We probably would have felt a bit of pressure coming into this one. It’s my first year involved with Sligo and you don’t want to be relegated in your first year.”
“We knew coming into this game that at the end of the day, we had to win. Derry are a really strong side and they knew they needed to win too, which made it a bit of a dog fight. But it was a great game of football and thankfully we came out the best.”
Corey was full of praise for his players who looked like they might be in bother following last week’s late draw with Offaly. But the Sligo boss says he never doubted his boys’ spirit and feels they even could have won the game by a wider margin.
With Derry leading at the break, Sligo’s task was made that bit more awkward considering they faced the breeze in the second half. Something that didn’t overly-concern Corey.
“I knew all week that the boys were focused and I knew we were up for the game. We were slow to start last week but today we were at it from the word go and we could have had two or three more scores by half-time.
“We showed last week that we were good against the breeze and we could run the ball so that wasn’t a concern for me today. I knew we’d deal with that and we did.”
Saying that, Cathal did concede that he was concerned when Shane McGuigan raised the green flag on 56 minutes to give the away side the lead. But he was again enthused by Sligo’s showing to come back and eventually win what was an enthralling second half.
“When Shane scored I was definitely worried at that stage. There was a great fightback from us to score two goals in the last 15 minutes.
“We knew what was happening down in Mullingar and kept up with how it affected us. So when they went six or seven up we knew it was just about a dogfight here.”
The men in black’s next assignment is their Connacht Championship clash with London on May 6th with the winner of that bout taking on whoever comes out of the Mayo/Galway game.
Ahead of that game, a portion of Cathal’s relief is down to not having to face into the next five or so weeks of training having been dumped back into Division 4.
He continues: “The confidence around the table is a lot better now. It would have been hard to go back to training had we been relegated. So now that the pressure is off you’d like to think the atmosphere will be better going into that game.
“We’re looking forward to it. There’s going to be pressure on us but we’ll bring confidence in from this win.”
Corey also had words of encouragement for Sunday’s beaten side.
Of Derry, he said: “I know a lot of their players as I would have managed a few. They’re really great lads and I know Damian (McErlian) would have had to play a lot of league games without his better players all year. They would have a lot more points if they had those players. They’ll be straight back up though.”
He also welcomed the arrival of Carlow and Laois to the third tier and expects them to provide a stout challenge when the league gets underway next Spring.
“We played Carlow in a challenge match earlier this year. They’re big and tough and very defensively set up.
“They’ll be hard to beat as will Laois.”