McCarthy bullish on Douglas chances

THE CONVENTIONAL wisdom has it that Douglas blew their chance of a county football final place when they coughed up a late three-point lead in their Cork SFC semi-final joust with Ilen Rovers two weeks ago.

Yet ahead of tonight’s replay, manager Ronan McCarthy toes a different line when reflecting on that game.

“We did lose the lead the last day but to be fair to Ilen they’d taken control of the game. It wasn’t like we collapsed, they’d been coming strong for the last seven or eight minutes. When Brian O’Sullivan was going through with that last chance, I thought he might go for goal. The general consensus might have it that we were disappointed but in other ways I felt we were fortunate to get a draw.”

Since the drawn encounter Douglas have had to contend with the interruption of small ball commitments. But rather than bemoaning their plight, McCarthy extracts the positives from last weekend’s stirring premier intermediate hurling win over Ballymartle.

“We’ve had time to regroup and the hurling victory gave everyone a lift. I think it probably helps the situation so late into the year that fella’s have a variety in their training between the two. Since the first Ilen match, the guys have had a break from me and I’ve had a break from them. That can help things.

“It’s a whole new ball game now. The experience of a semi-final will stand to us as there had been question marks over this side’s ability to deliver in a semi-final. The experience will hopefully stand to us and the chance is there to get to a county final.”

On the other side Ilen Rovers selector Jason Whooley is simply content that his charges are being offered another chance.

“We are fortunate to get a second go at this game. We got the scores we needed at the end, but the big thing was that the lads didn’t panic. In recent years we’ve lost tight games to St Nick’s, Bishopstown and Ballincollig, where we could have got draws. At least we’ve improved in that sense.

“But we’re nothing to write home about yet. Our immediate reaction after the draw was relief that we’d got out of jail. But since then it’s been more in-depth analysis as to why we didn’t perform. I do think a lot of it was down to Douglas.”

The hope now is that the drawn match will remedy any rustiness that Ilen had incurred during their lay-off since their quarter-final triumph over Clonakilty.

“We’d hope that would be the case,” says Whooley. “Although I thought we’d suffer in the first 10-15 minutes and we ended up playing well in that period. It was after that where we developed problems. The game should stand to us.”