BY MATTHEW WILSON
LETTERKENNY Rovers manager Stephen McConnell is eagerly anticipating the start of the FAI National League season as the club prepares to embark on a new chapter in its history.
The Letterkenny club hosted their launch night for the inaugural FAI National League season on Monday evening, with a large crowd in attendance.
After years of hard work and dedication from those within the club, Letterkenny Rovers are now ready to take the next step, with plenty of optimism and excitement surrounding what lies ahead.
“The club is a massive part of the community, it’s a massive town and it’s a massive club. We all come together for days like this”, said McConnell.
“We’re excited to get things started now and we’re looking forward to it.”
The Leckview Park outfit will have been undergoing their preparations for the upcoming National League since their Donegal Junior League season drew to a close.
They’ve put in plenty of work on the training ground and gained valuable game time through a number of pre-season friendlies, leaving McConnell satisfied with the preparations made ahead of the opening league fixture.
“We’ve put in the effort now, we probably have seven or eight weeks of pre-season behind us. We’ve had friendly matches since two days after we started training against a good standard of opposition.
“We played Northern Ireland Championship teams and some National League teams as well. We gave a good account of ourselves and we’re really happy with how the progress is going.”
Letterkenny Rovers have acquired the services of a number of new signings ahead of the FAI National League campaign.
The club has strengthened its squad with the additions of Donegal Town duo Ronan McHugh and Ultan O’Grady, along with Adam McCaffrey, Paddy McGarvey and Brendan McCafferty from Keadue Rovers.
There has been some other sigings made by the Letterkenny side as part of McConnell’s recruitment drive ahead of the new campaign.
These players were among those targeted by the management team in the build-up to pre-season, and McConnell has been pleased with the impact they have made since joining.
“We identified a couple of players that we wanted to bring in around last March or April. We wanted them in and they’ve all really impressed.
“They’ve adapted well in training and the standard’s been brilliant. I’m really happy with every signing, everyone’s going really well so far.”
Aside from those additions, the squad remains largely unchanged from the one that secured the Premier Division title last season.
Having established themselves as a force within Donegal in recent seasons, they will now be eager to see how they fare against opposition from across the country.
McConnell shared that view, seeing the step up to the national stage as a ‘real opportunity’ for his team to test themselves.
“One hundred percent. Nationally, we’ve done okay over the last couple of years but not how we should’ve done in my opinion.
“This is a real opportunity for us now. It’s exciting heading down to Salthill this weekend and hosting Mayo FC the week after, we’re looking forward to getting started.”
The Leckview Park side will compete with Mayo FC, Salthill Devon, St Francis and TUD in Group 2 of the inaugural FAI National League.
They’ll host their first game of the competition next weekend when the Mayo outfit make the journey up to Letterkenny.
But they kick things off with a trip to Galway for a meeting with Salthill Devon this Saturday afternoon.
Speaking to the Donegal News, the Letterkenny Rovers boss said he is expecting a tough test against the Connacht outfit but feels his side will be ready for the battle.
“I haven’t been down in Salthill before but I heard the facilities are great. I know about the team, I’d be silly if we said we haven’t done any homework on them.
“We played Mervue United twice over the last few years so you always look at the table to see where Salthill are at and they’re up there.
“They’ve brought in Greg Cunningham as manager and that’s going to attract players in itself. We’ll be up against it going down there but we’ll be well prepared for it.