Moortown’s Devlin hoping to spring massive upset

THERE may be a sudden death relegation playoff game on the horizon for Moortown against Coalisland but for now all the Malachys are worried about is pitting their wits against reigning SFC champions Errigal Ciaran this Saturday in Loughmacrory.

The Loughshore men had to dig deep to see off the challenge of Donaghmore in last week’s opening round encounter when they came through with the minimum to spare after an outstanding start that saw them register 1-3 without reply in the opening five minutes.

Full forward Peter Devlin sent them on their way with that early goal but he know that they will have to improve if they are going to cause a massive upset.

“ Hopefully we can give them a good game and see were that takes us,” said Devlin.

“ The performance against Donaghmore won’t be near good enough this weekend against Errigal Ciaran. We gave the ball away too many times needlessly, we need to be much better when in possession as they will definitely punish us if we don’t. It’s something that we will be working hard on in training this week and hopefully we can give them a good rattle on the day.

“ This is the type of game that you want to be playing it. It’s box office or it used to be box office when the two clubs met in the Championship back in the day. Errigal Ciaran always brought the best out in Moortown in the Championship over the years and hopefully that will be the case here again.”

Moortown have let leads slip of five plus points during the league on three of four occasions this season and Peter was just relieved that this time around they were able to see it out against Donaghmore.

“It was a good win against Donaghmore and one that we badly needed and we will enjoy it,” he stated.

“It was back and forth with us getting into the lead before being pecked back but I felt that we showed a lot of character to get the win. We let leads slip too many times during the league and it has cost us.

“ In bygone years that is something that perhaps wouldn’t have happened, we would have closed the games out. It is something that we have been working hard on in training. We should be sitting in a far better position in the league but we aren’t and we just have to keep our heads down now and work hard and get on with it.

“ We have worked really hard in training this last few weeks and it was great to put that into practice against Donaghmore and get a result. We know that we are up against it this weekend but these are the games that you want to be involved in.”