Omagh still have work to do to climb away from danger-O’Neill

DESPITE chiselling out back-to-back victories in their bid to clamber away from the drop zone, Ronan O’Neill insists that Omagh cannot afford to rest on their laurels.

The former Tyrone attacker weighed in with six pointed frees as St Enda’s got the better of Ardboe 0-10 to 0-9 on Thursday night at O’Neill’s Healy Park, the hosts reeling off the final four scores of a scrappy affair to take the spoils.

Coming on the back of their hard-fought road win at Carrickmore the week before, Omagh appear to have turned the corner after a worrying trend of losing results which had them starring anxiously over their shoulder at the bottom of the Division One table. O’Neill was pleased with the aptitude displayed by the side in the last two outings to get back in the winner’s enclosure.

“It wasn’t looking too good there for a while, but we dug in and got another two vital points. We had been on a bad run losing four in a row, but we have battled it out in the last couple of matches and shown that bit of grit.

“ Fair play to the boys. I think that is the second game we that have had a settled team, so that makes a difference as well.

“ We have had injuries and lads away, so it has been tough to pick the same 15 on a weekly basis.

“I know that it is the same for other teams, but we seem to have been affected more than most. It is not a nice position to be in down at the bottom of the table.”

Ronan knows, however, that St Enda’s still have plenty of work to do to ensure their top flight status ahead of the Championship next month.

“ There are very few points separating a lot of teams in the table this year, so we are all going to have to battle right up until the end of the league.

“ We have backed up performances with wins now twice  in a row: Ardboe are a very good team, and came in here having picked up a few positive results as well, so their confidence would have been high. So we are happy with the win, but have loads to work on still.”

O’Neill states that the unpredictable results witnessed in Division One over the past fortnight or so highlights the need to guard against complacency.

“Anybody can beat anybody else on any given days as we have seen, especially in the last week or so.

“This is the time of year where you want to be picking up performances and wins, coming into the business end of the season. We will recover now, and get ready for another titanic battle on Wednesday night against Donaghmore.”