BY MATTHEW WILSON
CONVOY Arsenal manager Johnny Doherty is anticipating a competitive encounter this Sunday when his side face Drumoghill in the Division 1 promotion/relegation play-off.
Convoy Arsenal were in seventh position, as we entered an enthralling final day of the Division 1 season.
However, following a 1-0 defeat away to Cappry Rovers as well as victories for Gweedore United and Ballybofey United, they saw themselves drop to ninth place on goal difference.
Despite this blow, Johnny Doherty expressed that they experienced a positive second half of the campaign that his youthful outfit can be pleased with.
“Going into the last game we were seventh. With Ballybofey and Gweedore United winning, we slipped down on goal difference. Gweedore actually got a goal late on against us which put us into the play-off because that was a two goal turnaround.
“To be honest since Christmas there’s been a lot of positives. Apart from the games down in Gweedore and Ballybofey, every other game we’ve been good and probably deserved a few more points along the road if truth be told.”
“We’ve been competitive and that’s the main thing. With a little bit of luck we would’ve avoided that second bottom place.”
With this ninth place finish, the Convoy outfit will now have to come through a play-off match in order to preserve their position in the league.
Their last competitive outing was just shy of three weeks ago so they’ve spent the past number of weeks keeping busy on the training field while also participating in some friendlies to get themselves prepared for the big game.
The Orchard Park residents earned promotion from Division 2 last season and they’ll be keen to avoid dropping back down just a year into life in Division 1.
The Convoy Arsenal boss discussed that survival in the league was the group’s aim from the beginning and is hoping that can achieve that this Sunday.
“As I told them from the very first training session this year, our main objective was to stay in the division and we still have a chance to do that. “Obviously we want to stay in the division but it’s a young group and we’ll see what happens on Sunday.”
What lies ahead of Doherty’s side in Sunday’s play-off encounter is a youthful, in-form Drumoghill outfit.
Jonathan Wilson’s men have been on a good run of form at the business end of the season, narrowly missing out on an automatic promotion spot.
Having spent the last few years in Division 2 of the Donegal Junior League, they’ll be hoping to make the leap this term and having watched them in action last weekend, Doherty is anticipating a competitive contest in Ballyare this weekend.
“I went down to watch Drumoghill last week and I was impressed. We would’ve played Drumoghill twice last year but there’s not too many players that I saw last year that were there on Sunday.
“It’s a new Drumoghill, with some very good young players. They’ll definitely want to go up a division and rightly so with that squad because I was impressed with them. They’ve a lot of young players in their early twenties and they’ll want to be playing in Division 1 at least.”
“It’ll be a competitive game, it’s two teams that are fairly young and it should be a good enough game.”