A club on the up
‘Experience from last year definitely helped us’
FOR Damien McHugh and his Skehana-Mountbellew-Moylough management team of John Mannion, Sean Farrell, Simon Roche and former Galway forward Niall Healy, Saturday was a sweet, sweet day.
Twelve months earlier at the same venue, the amalgamation went down to Ballygar in a novel Junior A decider after falling well behind and mounting an ill-fated late rally. On Saturday, they proved effective front-runners once they got ahead early in the second half and mounted a series of late defensive stands as Loughrea tried, in vain, to conjure up an equalising goal.
“Last year was a difficult day at the office and the lads were brilliant to give themselves an opportunity to put things right this year,” said McHugh, in his second season at the helm. “It wasn't pretty, but we got the job done in the end, thank God.
“We didn't panic when Loughrea started to come back at us. Probably the experience from last year's defeat definitely helped us in the last ten minutes. I think we tightened up on our free-taking today and probably got a bit of a rub of the green that we didn't get last year.
“It’s brilliant. There’s a lot of underage coming and a lot of really good players. We’re up to Intermediate now and it’s a better standard for those lads to go into. It’s all positive and the future looks bright for the club…
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