By 
TRIES from Aaron Dunwoody, Matthew Bothwell and David Stinson were not enough for Clogher Valley to earn anything from their home game against second placed UL Bohemians in Energia All-Ireland League 2B on Saturday.
The match was always going to be a tough one for Clogher, who have been far from their vintage best this term, particularly at home where they have now lost all three fixtures, while Bohs are pushing for promotion after an unbeaten start to their campaign.
And so it proved on Saturday as the visitors earned a fourth try-scoring bonus point win of the season, while Clogher, who were without head coach Stephen Bothwell on the day, are left wondering what might have been yet again this term.
For Paul Armstrong and captain, Eugene McKenna, the result didn’t come from a lack of effort, but more from Boh’s ability to minimise their mistakes and maximise their periods in possession.
“It was frustrating enough,” acknowledged injured centre, Armstrong.
“When they played they can play and we probably gave them too much respect at times and they got over the gain line off nine and we couldn’t handle them.
“But that’s the same as us, when we played, they couldn’t handle us. Unfortunately the difference was, their purple patch was for 60 minutes and our was for 20.
“Galwegians and [Bohs] have come on massively from last year. I’d say we haven’t got worse, we just haven’t got better and those guys have got a lot better and I can see them being the top runners. I’d be disappointed if we’re not still knocking in around the heels of them, but you’d have to be on your game to beat both those teams.”
And McKenna added: “We had too many mistakes – lineouts overthrown, mistiming the jumps and lifts, we probably stuttered at the start in the scrums – and while we came good in the end it was probably a little too late.”
Having enjoyed the most successful period in the club’s history over the last four years, the majority of the current Clogher squad hasn’t experienced a spell of inconsistent results like this, but Armstrong and McKenna believe it will be the making of the younger players in the panel, who they feel can help them kick-start their season over the next couple of months when they play eight fixtures against teams in the bottom half of the table.
“It’s one of those things and I think me and Paul have gone through more of this, whereas the younger boys haven’t really experienced this yet. Hopefully it will show they are made of the good stuff!,” McKenna said.
“Thinking about last season, Galwegians didn’t win a game for their first seven, but they turned it around after Christmas so I still think we can do that.”
And Armstrong added: “Our next four, which are back-to-back [8 fixtures in total] are against teams from fifth place down in the table, so the next eight games you’d like to be targeting six wins or seven wins and then you’d be there or there abouts [in the promotion picture].”
