CASTLEWELLAN have won three games in a row. Have they turned a corner in terms of their season? Manager Tony Wilson certainly hopes so.
Last Thursday, Castlewellan beat Bryansford by 1-16 to 2-12 in Newcastle, a significant result in arguably their most important derby.
“It was nice to get the win particularly with how the season has been going,” Tony said. “I would not have said it was a brilliant game of football. It was bad conditions. It was very slippy. There were a lot of mistakes. That led to a high scoring game.
“I suppose in any Castlewellan Bryansford game it is the result that is more important than the performance. There is no love lost between the two.”
Castlewellan won by a point, Gareth McKibben’s two-pointer at the end was the key score.
Tony said: “I’d say Bryansford were devastated, but it is a game that could have went either way. If you were speaking to Bryansford they would definitely say they played poorly. We could have played better. But on the balance of play we deserved it.”
However, they were nervous in the lead up.
“Bryansford are sitting towards the top of the table and we are sitting bottom. Given the derby that it is, and one they don’t like losing, I think that they were a wee bit apprehensive going into it. Probably the performance showed that. They didn’t play as well as they did this last couple of weeks.”
But Castlewellan got the result they needed, and maintained their winning run.
The form change is remarkable for Castlewellan who have gone from having a disastrous run of eight defeats to now having won three games in a row.
Tony explained how the team managed themselves during that run of defeats.
“We have had a tough season so far,” Tony said. “We had to look at what was going wrong and how we could put it right. We had been working on that for two or three weeks. You could slowly but surely see things get better. It was just that the boys did start believing in themselves and started executing what we had been working on.
“That was good to see. It was good for them as it gave them a bit more belief that the system could work.”
In the full article Tony goes on to explain how the squad has developed this year.
