By Ronan Scott
sport@mourneobserver.com
LOUGHINISLAND are on the path to be considered alongside the strongest teams in Down.
That’s the analysis of manager Conor O’Toole following what has been a very positive start to the season.
The senior footballers have won five of their seven games played and are joint top of the Division One table alongside Carryduff and Kilcoo.
Manager O’Toole says Loughinisland still have some way to go to be considered footballing equals.
“We feel like we are starting to get into a position where we would like to be considered along with the top teams in the county,” he said.
“At the moment there are grounds to say that we are achieving that. But
at the start of the year, our focus was staying away from relegation. We are only a couple of defeats away from being in a relegation battle.”
Loughinisland’s form cannot be denied. They have beaten good teams in Burren, Clonduff, Mayobridge and RGU Downpatrick.
Conor said: “I would not say that it has been a surprise.
“We are on a good run of form. We had a good win against Burren and we had a good win against Mayobridge. We have had good wins
against Clonduff. “We felt that we had a good start.
“But we got trimmed by Kilcoo, they were a million times better than
Loughinisland beat Burren last day out by 1-27 to 0-24.
That result highlighted an issue that has become a regular occurrence for Loughinisland, a defensive frailty.
Conor explained: “We scored 1-27, and we had scored 1-17 at half time.
We would be pleased with our scoring but not pleased about conceding 0-24.
“Whenever you are trying to score, then you are opening up opportunities to concede.
“So we are trying to make sure that we are scoring more than we are conceding.”
Loughinisland’s scoring has been impressive. In their seven matches, they have scored 20-plus points on four occasions.
The counter to that is they have conceded 20-plus points three times.
“We are trying to rack up big scores and lower the amount that we concede. That is the target,” Conor said.
How they do that is simple.
“If we could get to a place of consistency, where everyone is playing 7/10 or better every game, that would be good, instead of playing one game at 9/10 then the next at 5/10.
In terms of their squad, it has changed from last year.
They suffered a blow when their first-choice goalkeeper Chris Turley broke his arm while playing for Kilmore Rec.
That has meant that Darragh Valentine has come into the team.
“For Darragh Valentine, this is the first time that he has played senior football. We have unearthed a really good goalkeeper and he has the potential to keep Chris out of the team.”
That plays into the club’s eagerness to develop their squad.
Conor said: “We have made a big emphasis into blooding younger players into the senior games and get them more experience.
“Odhran O’Prey has come to the fore.
“Ruairi Barlow is another who has been in good form in the last few weeks.”
