Kyle boosted by derby win

GLENN Kyle believes Omagh Accies 26-12 victory over Dungannon on Saturday will boost his side’s confidence ahead of their pre-Christmas fixtures.

The Accies early season form has been patchy at best as the squad has been blighted by injuries from the start.
But now, with some consistency within their ranks, they have started to improve results with recent wins over Sundays Well and Bruff testament to that.

And Kyle believes that Saturday’s win over Dungannon, all be it in a hastily arranged friendly after both teams All-Ireland League opponents were ruled out due to Covid, can provide another timely boost ahead of this weekend’s visit of Midleton to the Thomas Mellon Playing Fields.

“I’m very, very pleased leaving Dungannon because to win against a team from the league above us, mid table and doing well in the league above us can only do our confidence the world of good,” he said.
“I’d have loved to have done that in Clonmel, but we’ll have to do it against Midleton next week and we’ll have to build on the things we worked on today [Saturday].

“We’re getting lads back from injury, we had a real bad spell there and I think we’ll do OK with out full squad. If we can keep them injury free our goal is the top four and we said that from the get go. If we can finish in the top four and get a play-off spot in the first year, that’s a success.

“That’s what we’re hoping for but it’s a tough, tough league. There are a lot of water to go under the bridge yet, but if we can finish there that would be a fantastic achievement and something for them to build upon.”

Ahead of Saturday’s clash at Stevenson Park, Kyle admitted that he was a little concerned that the decision to play the match could backfire on him.

He was only able to muster a small squad and had they suffered a heavy defeat, confidence would have been knocked rather than built. In the end, though, his squad played well and can now look forward with positivity.

“We went down with 17 players, but it was one of those off the cuff things to pull Dungannon out and to be fair, I couldn’t fault the boys,” he beamed.

“There was a risk going up there with such a small squad but as a rugby man, the club was struggling at 9.30pm on Friday night to get their game for the people who were there, the MIke Tindall’s and that, so we pulled them out and we went up there and gave them a good game.

“We worked on a lot of things during the week that we wanted to bring, and don’t forget Dungannon are the league above us and that was their full AIL panel of 20-whatever players, and we beat them on their own pitch.

“We can take a lot of positives from that and we beat them fairly comfortably without sounding arrogant.

“You beat and All Ireland team the league above you and I just thought our defensive set-up was just brilliant, we were so smart. We missed a few one on one tackles and the line broke a wee bit too easily at times but generally, our defensive set-up was really good and it’s working really well.

“To go away from home, it was a real good run-out, no injuries, which was the biggest worry for me having had a bad injury spell there, so couldn’t be happier.”

Omagh Accies hiome game with Midleton will kick-off at 2.30pm on Saturday.