By Niall Gartland

IT was never going to be an overnight process in his first managerial venture outside of his native Leitrim, but so far things are going well for Drumlane manager Barry McWeeney.

They’ve taken a massive step towards the knock-out rounds of the Intermediate Championship having won both of their group stage matches to date, but McWeeney insists that they’re by no means the finished product.

Drumlane reached the Ulster Junior final four years back, losing on penalties to Tyrone side Stewartstown, but they’ve never ventured beyond the quarter-finals at Intermediate level in the intervening period.

Group stage wins over Ballymachugh and Ballinagh should steel the side with confidence for the road ahead, and McWeeney says their younger brigade are learning with every passing game.

On their opening day win over Ballymachugh, the former Leitrim U20 manager commented: “They’re a right good outfit, a big, physical team. It’s funny, it’s my first venture outside of Leitrim, so I’m getting used to the surroundings and the teams that you’re playing against.

“Physically, it’s quite a bit different. You’re playing against big men every week, and the quality of some of their forwards is excellent. Shane Tynan from Ballymachugh is a top class player, well able to kick a two-pointer. He put a lot of pressure on us last week, so it was nice to get over that one.”

“They backed up that win with another positive result against a Ballinagh side accustomed to senior championship football.

“They’ve a lot of experience there. Looking at their first game, they changed it up this week against us. They brought Ronan Connolly out to the half-back line and made a couple of changes up front as well. You can see the difference in standard too. They’re a solid team, a big, physical team. When they got the ball up the field, their shooting percentages were way ahead of where we were at.

“There’s learning in that in itself, and the experience they had in slowing it down as well. It’s great for our young lads to get experience against teams like that, to learn and see what it’s like. As a club, it’d be great to push on towards those standards as well.”

With two more group stage games remaining, Drumlane have put themselves in a good position to reach the last-eight of the race for the Tommy Gilroy Cup. They can’t afford to ease off the accelerator though.

“I think we may need another point or two just to be safe. But look, it’s great to get two out of two. We’re introducing a lot of young fellas into the team this year. We had three debuts on their first day out and brought on another young fella the other day as well. It’s good to get them integrated, to get a feel for it.”