Black preaching 'one game at a time' for title chasing Clogher

Editorial Department • Published 16 Feb 2012 13:00 0 Comments

Only four games stand between Clogher Valley and the league title after they opened a three point gap by defeating title rivals Cooke on Saturday.

A successful end to the season would give the club promotion to the All-Ireland league and Coach Davy Black reckons that would be the greatest achievement in the club's history.

"To win the league would be the pinnacle of anything that has been done in the past by us," he said. "The club is only 22 years old and to be sitting at the top of Qualifying One with the season we have had is already a big achievement, even if nothing else happens. The boys have put in a fantastic effort, but as for what it means if we win it, we will cross that bridge when we come to it."

The race for the title has developed into a two horse race between Clogher Valley and Cooke, and the winner of last weekend's head to head was always going to emerge with the tag of title favourites.

Despite the pressure of the occasion, Davy was delighted with how his side performed. "I thought the boys played really well and stuck to the game plan," he revealed.

"We had worked on a few different things in training during the week with myself and Glen, and the boys really stuck to their task. Their tackling was top drawer and their defence was top drawer, and from that we created enough chances to win the game. We were on top for a lot of the game and I thought we were the better side. Sometimes in big games like that you can be lucky and come away with a win but that wasn't the case on Saturday. I thought we deserved to win. We ground out the result, which is something the boys have been doing. We have a never say die attitude and they are really working hard to get the right results."

Saturday's match was the first for some time that finished with no further additions to Valley's growing injury list, and Davy played tribute to the team's fighting qualities as they made light of their recent injury setbacks. "We have been crippled with a few bad injuries recently," he admitted. "There was four weeks on the trot we had broken limbs but we are still sticking together and working and training hard, and the boys really want to grasp something that will be very hard to ever do again. The last couple of weeks we've had to grind out results but there's a great winning mentality at the minute."

Despite their unbeaten record this season the final sequence of four games represents a tough challenge for Clogher. Their run-in starts with a match against fourth placed Donaghadee, and the team know they may well need to maintain their 100% record if they are to fulfil their title dreams.

"I think we'll have to go unbeaten and win all four to win the league, so every one of them is going to be like a cup final." admitted Davy. "It's by no means cut and dry and maybe the remaining fixtures suit Cooke slightly better, so we needed to get those three points to steal a bit ahead. We will take one step at a time, and we have four more steps. Hopefully we can climb them and be there at the end."

Tweet

This article appeared in Impartial Reporter 16 Feb 12

Post a comment

Your Comment:

Registered users log in here

Username or email

Password

You must be logged in to post. If you have not registered with us, please do so now.

Registration only takes a few minutes. Registered users do not have to complete word verification once logged in and can also take part in competitions and other registered user only features of the site.

Word Verification:
Enter the text as shown.

Return to the main index, get more from this section or browse our Sport archives.