Killeevan keen to build on momentum says Little

By Shaun Casey

IT’S been a hectic few weeks for the Killeevan club. In the space of a little over a month, Aidan Little’s side have completed the league and championship double and reached an Ulster Junior semi-final.

The Sarsfields club take on John Mitchel’s, Claudy on Saturday afternoon, just seven days after beating Naomh Columba by the minimum of margins . A spot in the Ulster final is the prize for the winner this weekend.

The quick turnaround can be a hindrance, but Little is hoping his side can build on the momentum.

“We were out last week and we’re straight back out again this weekend. If we make the final, we get a two-week break, but we’ll not worry about that just yet,” he said.

“Even before Ulster, we had our league final the week before and our championship final two weeks before that, so we’ve been going at it nonstop for the last four or five weeks so hopefully it’ll not take too much of a toll on us.

“We’ll take it easy at training and keep things nice and light and hopefully we’ll be fresh enough. When you’re going well and winning games, even if you’re only winning by a point, you get that winning way and you don’t really want the break.

“At the same time, it might come at the right time if we do make it to the final and that two-week break would help to settle down and get the bodies back to normal and we could give the Ulster final a good go if we happen to make it.”

The joys of the Ulster club mean Little, and his management team, won’t have too much time to study the opposition, but he feels that could be a positive.

“You don’t have much time to try and get much information during the week. You’re trying to get clips from the papers and see what you can take from that.

“Sometimes it’s better going in not knowing that much about them and you can stick to your own game-plan and hopefully that works on the day, it has done the last few weeks so why change?”

On the last day out, Little added: “The conditions last weekend were poor so it was a game of two halves because there was a strong wind. I thought we played quite well, we kept the ball quite well against the wind.

“We created good chances; we didn’t convert everything but that’s on the day.

“Overall, the first half we did well and the second half, we got a bit sloppy and gave them a chance to get back into it.

“They got a penalty towards the end which brought them back into the game while we missed a penalty before half time which would have given us a boost before half time but you have to deal with these things; we have plenty to improve on.”