Christy Ring Cup round four: Derry v London (Sunday, Owenbeg, 12pm)
WHETHER Derry’s hurlers have had a good year or a great year will be determined in the next couple of weeks and manager Dominic ‘Woody’ McKinley knows it.
The Oak Leafs secured promotion to Division 2A in the spring, winning five games out of five with the best scoring difference in all six divisions, before beating Sligo in the 2B final in Ederney. They followed that up with wins in the opening two rounds of their Christy Ring campaign, but then hit the brick wall of Kildare last time out.
Although McKinley’s men lost by 15 points in Newbridge a fortnight ago, the former Antrim manager believes they will be a better team for it and knows wins in their final two games will see them reach their second Christy Ring final in succession.
“We know that we need to win our remaining two games to get to the final, but we’d be foolish to start looking further than London,” he said ahead of Sunday’s game in Owenbeg.
“If you look at their [London’s] results, you’d get the impression that they are a bit inconsistent but, on the days that they turn up, they present a serious challenge.
“One good thing about the Kildare match was that it was a learning experience for us. It was a blessing in disguise, in fact. The difference with the Offaly game in the final last year was that we didn’t get a chance to learn from it, that was it done.
“We have the chance to learn this time around. But we need to park the Kildare game now and focus fully on London.”
Derry got no respite in between their league final at the start of April and the commencement of the Christy Ring Cup a week later, so McKinley was grateful for the weekend off last week.
“We’ve had a good rest since the Kildare game. It’s always good to get a bit of a rest to deal with whatever small injuries have popped up,” he added.
“With the amount of games we’re playing, it’s the same in every county, and people are taking risks with niggles that don’t get addressed until we have a rest.”
One player who won’t be seen again this summer is Slaughtneil star Micheál McGrath, who suffered a broken wrist during training in advance of the Kildare game and will miss the rest of the campaign. However, McKinley has had strong buy in so far this year, with the likes of Cormac O’Doherty, Odhrán McKeever, Deaghlan Foley and Gerard Bradley playing starring roles.
“The spirit is good in the camp and the commitment is good, so what we need to do now is squeeze the maximum we can out of it,” McKinley said.
“Obviously, we set targets at the beginning of the year – to get into Division 2A being one of them, and we managed that. Another target we set was to get back to the Christy Ring final, but everybody is looking to achieve the same things.
“We’d love to get to the final and correct the things that went wrong for us last year – we all know that we need to improve. The quality is there – the question is, can we utilise it?”
