Drumragh boss still upbeat about their prospects

DRUMRAGH manager Colm Bradley is upbeat that the Sarsfields can still turn their season around despite going into the holiday break propping up the Division Two table.

The former Fermanagh attacker steered the side to the Junior Championship Final last year, and while they came up short on that occasion against Fintona, they regrouped superbly to secure promotion via the league playoffs.

Their return to Intermediate level for the first time since 2006 has not been straightforward thus far and after six rounds of matches, they have just two points on the board, that coming with victory over fellow strugglers Cookstown.

Bradley and his management team will have used the fortnight’s break to assess the situation, as despite turning in a number of battling performances they have failed to translate that into vital points on the board.

The Enniskillen native said that he couldn’t fault the players application and attitude.

“We have to learn from every game and then take the lessons into upcoming games and get results that will get us over the line. The first thing is that you want to compete and against top six teams like Moortown, Gortin and Greencastle we have competed against all of them.”

One aspect of their game that Drumragh will be keen to brush up upon is their finishing. In their most recent loss at home to Greencastle they converted just four points from eleven frees they were awarded within scoring range.

Bradley knows that giving teams head starts in matches has also proved costly. At half time against Greencastle they trailed by five points, before fighting back strongly after the break, only to fall short. The manager remains confident that they can turn things around.

“I think we have to figure out what our standard is and establish ourselves but we have had one game this year where our performance wasn’t acceptable that was against Stewartstown. In other games including that one against Greencastle there have been positives and decent passages of play that I know we can build on.”

While injuries to key personnel is another mitigating factor Bradley wans’t keen to go down the excuses route.

“ We have some serious players missing and of course we want to get them back but it allows the other lads to get much needed experience. The likes of James Broderick came in and did well against (Greencastle’s) Cahir McCullagh for example. You have to use squad players and we are happy with the lads we have.”

Among those on the casualty list at present are Shane Devine, Eoin Montgomery, Shane Cleary and Cormac Norris, whike others are currently overseas. Bradley hopes to have some of his key men back in the coming weeks as they battle to get away from the drop zone.

Such is the competitive nature of Division Two that a couple of wins would quickly propel a side up the table and with games to come against teams around them at the bottom, Drumragh still have plenty of reason to be optimistic.

Despite their bad run Bradley and his players knows that their fate remains very much in their own hands

“ You hear it all the time from teams coming up from Division Three that you can’t get away with things in Division Two that you could do in Junior. Our boys will learn and understand what the standards are required to be successful and I am confident we can do that although we do have a crazy schedule when we start again, with eight games in four weeks.”