CAPPRY Rovers captain Aaron Kelly says the club are in a transition period as they prepare for their Brian McCormick Cup Area semi-final with Donegal Town.
After relegation to Division One on the final day of the Premier Division season last year, Cappry began the season in underwhelming circumstances.
One point from their opening four games, including a 10-0 defeat to Sunday’s opponents was worrying but they got numbers back and returned to form to finish fifth, eight points clear of the relegation play-off.
“We were happy enough after the start we had,” Kelly said.
“We had a fairly poor start impacted by the Gaelic. (Sean) MacCumhaill’s got to the semi-final of the championship and Glenfin were still playing as well.
“But we came into it well and you could kind of see that with the results against Donegal Town.
“The first time against them, MacCumhaill’s played the night before against Glenswilly so we didn’t have many allowed to play, we were beat 10-0 over there but we were able to turn them over in the return game in the Finn Valley and we didn’t even have a full team that day, when we do have our full team we’re a fairly strong side but getting that team out is the problem.
“There was definitely that fear of relegation and I suppose that spurred us on to get everyone out and once we got them out then we knew we had the players to beat anyone in the league, we didn’t fear anyone in the league.”
The Jamie Doherty managed side lost a host of important players after relegation and were forced to turn to the youth during the campaign, with Kelly alluding to a bit of a transition period for the club.
That is also happening off the pitch too as Cappry Park gets redeveloped, with the side playing their games at the Finn Valley Centre for the entire season.
“We lost Jamie Murray, Dean O’Donnell and Conor Doherty, three young players that would have been starting for us and would have been very good for us,” Kelly added.
“Then ‘Waxy’ (Paddy McNulty) had retired and with the three of them gone and the squad dwindling we had to get him out of retirement, it’s getting no easier for him at 42 but he keeps coming back and delivering the goods.
“We’re in a year or two of transitioning from a lot of the older boys leaving or retiring to some very young players.
“Callum Long played a few games and he’s only 15 and he has been brilliant. Then you have other boys on the bench who are 16 or 17 and we’re going that way that we’re trying to get them boys into the team, they’re more than good enough but they just need some older heads around them to help them on.
“Even the last game against Letterkenny Rovers we were beat 1-0 and we had a lot of young players out that day, it was just about getting 11 players out and fulfilling the fixture because we had a lot missing.
“The weather we have here in Ireland has probably put the pitch back six months, we didn’t get a lot done because of the bad summer last year so we’ll probably be looking at another year out of Cappry for the senior team.
“But the Finn Valley Centre has a good pitch and if you can’t play football there then there’s no excuse for it.”
Cappry faced Division 2 strugglers Dunkineely Celtic in the quarter-final at Darney Park and while they were favourites, the job still had to be done and they took a comprehensive 6-0 win to reach the final four of the Donegal Area.
And a third meeting between Cappry and Donegal Town takes place at the Hospital Field this Sunday, with the winners going on to meet Premier Division side and reigning Area champsions St Catherine’s in the final.
“When you go to places like Dunkineely it’s not easy because you’re expected to win but you still have to go out and score the goals but we got over the line to get to the semi-final.
“Donegal Town had a good season and they’ll be disappointed not to get promoted so they’ll want to finish off on a high. Paul McHugh their manager has done very well there the last six or seven years so it’ll not be an easy game.
“We haven’t trained the last two weeks to be honest and we’d be used to having this part of the season over by now. It would have been good the way they planned to do it but it didn’t go that way and it’s a bit all over the place.
“We have one or two injuries, we’ll probably not have Waxy who is struggling with an ankle injury but we’ll have a strong enough team and we’re looking forward to Sunday.
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