Lacken just happy to remain in the title hunt says McCabe

By Michael McMullan

IT’S a tight turnaround for Lacken ahead of Saturday’s Ulster Junior Championship Football semi-final with Fintona – but it’s a problem they are happy to have.

Last weekend’s win over Ballyhegan was forced back due to the postponement of the preliminary round game with Doire Trasna.

With the sides level against Ballyhegan, James Galligan was sent off and the Armagh champions pushed five points ahead.

They needed a save from goalkeeper Raymond Galligan and a goal from his cousin Thomas to stem the tide.

“If you had said to us 15 minutes into that second half, would you like to be playing next Saturday, or is it all a bit too rushed, you’d have had no bother getting an answer,” said Lacken manager Aidan McCabe.

Having managed Monaghan’s Blackhill to the Ulster Junior title in 2019, McCabe recognised the opportunity at their feet.

“I remember counting up before and there are about 90 junior clubs or thereabouts in Ulster. We’re down to the final four, so there are no complaints this week,” he added.

Lacken were relegated from Division Two of the league but the five points they did manage to tot up came from games against the top three teams in the division.

Since then, they’ve stepped over the championship hurdles and how have an Ulster final in their sights.

“We were competitive in pretty much all those games,” McCabe said of their league.

“One or two of them we fell away in. Drumhowan haven’t lost a game this year, Fintona have only lost one in the league and Ballyhegan were the same.”

Relegation is in the past but when they were in the championship trenches against Ballyhegan last weekend, Lacken found the answers.

“It was hunger and guts and character,” McCabe said. “It wasn’t anything technical or tactical, I’d love to tell you it was.

Knuckle down

“We just had a choice to make whether we were going to knuckle down and give absolutely everything, if it came up short, it came up short.”

For McCabe and Lacken, they managed to climb clear of the danger and now have their eyes fixed on Fintona this weekend.

After successive championship relegations in as many seasons, senior to junior, Lacken said that enough was enough.

“They’ve really, really stepped things up,” McCabe said, pointing also to a bolstered squad that now includes 2020 All-Star Thomas Galligan.

“Thomas being back, that would help any team in Ireland. The boys (the entire squad) have stepped up since, the conditioning, the football, the good choices, decision making, everything around that. They’re light years ahead of where we were at the start of the year.

“You don’t always know if it’s in a team until the question’s asked of them,” he said of the final quarter against Ballyhegan.

“You’d like to think as a manager and coach, you’re putting in scenarios, you’re talking through things and maybe that has an effect.

“What is in them really showed,” he added. “That hunger, that character, really just not saying ‘no, we’re going to give it absolutely everything’. The likes of that, it’s either in boys or it’s not.”