COALISLAND manager John McKeever feels the pain his players are suffering, despite the fact he wasn’t there to witness the deadly blow.
Last autumn, they felt they were ready to reach out for the O’Neill Cup once again, but came up short in a semi-final clash with eventual champions Trillick. Former Antrim defender McKeever has come in and freshened things up, made a few tactical adjustments and the Fianna are flying once again in league and championship.
A dozen of the players who featured in the club’s last championship triumph in 2010 are still there, and remain as hungry as ever as they target this weekend’s Donnelly Vauxhall Tyrone SFC quarter-final against Kildress.
“There’s a good attitude about the squad at the minute, because there’s a lot of hurt there form 12 months ago when they got beaten in the semi-final by Trillick, and they were well prepared last year,” he said.
McKeever has form in Tyrone club football. He guided Cookstown to the All-Ireland Intermediate Championship title in 2013, and many of the philosophies he embraced during that triumphant run are central to his approach at Fr Peter Campbell Park, where the collective unit is more important than individual talent.
“There’s really no individual players here. It’s a collective effort, and you can see that with the fitness of the boys and the runs that they’re making," he added.
“So we got the heads down in December, and we thought we were setting targets for the year, we want to give this as best an effort as we can. The boys are training hard, they have done their fitness work, they have done their strength work.”
Coalisland coasted to an eight points win in their first round clash with Galbally, and are strongly fancied to see off Kildress in Friday’s eliminator at Healy Park: “There will be no easy game come the semi-final stage, so we just have to put in the same preparation,” McKeever said.
McKeever was disappointed to see the tempo wane in the closing stages of the 2-13 to 0-11 victory over Galbally, but feels his players will be strong enough to respond to greater challenges further down the line.
“Probably the most disappointing thing was that we slowed down for the last 10 minutes or so,” he said.
“Maybe that was just closing out the game, doing it professionally and getting the job done, but really on another day later in the championship, that might not be good enough, so we have to go back to the training field and work on keeping that intensity going for 63 or 65 minutes.”
Missing from their front line this weekend will be ace attacker Paddy McNeice, who is currently abroad, but others have stepped up to the mark in his absence: “Paddy McNeice is in America for the long term. You would love to have him back, because he’s a marquee forward,” said McKeever.
“But the way his transfer is, there’s no opportunity for him to come back, because I think if he does come back, he can’t play championship football. But by him leaving the squad, it just meant that other boys had to step up. We were disappointed to lose Paddy, but other leaders in the team have to step up.
“Collectively, we’re working more as a team now, in terms of Cathaoir Quinn, Dermy Thornton and Cormac O’Hagan.”
