LONGSTONE have spectacularly bounced back from their disappointing league campaign. On Sunday, in the Mourne derby, Miceal Magill’s team beat An Ríocht by 1-12 to 1-11 in Atticall to record one of the shocks of the Intermediate Championship.
It was a remarkable result because Longstone had suffered the ignominy of being relegated to Division Three at the start of August. Yet one month later they find themselves in the last eight of the Intermediate Championship. They had beaten another fancied Intermediate team, Darragh Cross, in round one.
The result proves yet again that Longstone, who won the Intermediate Championship in 2002, always save their best displays for the championship. One of their most experienced campaigners, Michael Ireland, outlined what went so right about their Sunday performance.
He told the Mourne Observer: “I suppose we took our chances, and we had power and speed coming from our deep runners, but again Kingdom did miss a few chances and on another day, they could have scored them.”
Michael emphasised that Longstone are just trying to lift their spirits after a disappointing league campaign. “It’s nice to come out on top in the local derby and get that competitive game in the early rounds, but the Kingdom are very much still favourites in my eyes along with Rostrevor. “We are just happy to get a few wins on the bounce after the season we had, getting relegated. “And we are happy to have the week’s break And get lads back from injuries. Now we’ll enjoy the draw!”
Longstone will go into the quarter-finals draw after this weekend’s round three matches.
