LONGSTONE manager Miceal Magill is adamant that it is no surprise the club have reached the semi-finals of the championship.
Anyone who thought that Longstone might struggle in the Intermediate Championship this year following their relegation to Division Three, might have been taken aback by the ‘Stone’s form of late.
But Magill said that those people were not paying attention.
“People will visualise that Longstone had a bad second division.
“Longstone did not have a bad second division.
“Longstone were very close on numerous occasions and outside of the defeat to Annaclone in Annaclone, and Ballyholland in Longstone, we took quite a lot of the big teams down the straight.
“But for a few individuals not being fit, we were only two points off the magic number of 14 which is where you can survive the drop.
“If we had a full squad, we would be in the mix.”
In particular losing senior players like Michael Hughes or Conor Doran made the league campaign a challenge. In the end Longstone were relegated to Division Three but have not let that damage their mood, and have went on a championship run that included wins over Darragh Cross in round one, a fancied An Ríocht side in round two and Clann na Banna in the quarter-final.
“They have regrouped and reworked,” Magill said.
“We didn’t change our philosophy or our plans.
“We knew that we needed a bit of break and to get players back from injury.”
They are now taking on the team that many fancy to win outright.
“We go into the semi-final against Rostrevor as complete and utter underdogs,” Miceal said.
“But I had the boys in the huddle in Dundrum after the Banbridge game (Clann na Banna) last Friday night, and I made one comment to them, there will be no one who wants to play Longstone.”
Miceal said that Rostrevor are going to be the toughest challenge that they have undertaken, but he said that the Reds are not unbeatable.
“The team know they are 60 minutes away from competing in an Intermediate Championship final, so they are fully focused on Rostrevor.
“They know they have a mammoth task ahead of them.
“We had a really good battle against them in Longstone.
“We should have won that league game. Then the fixture in Rostrevor, Rostrevor beat us by ten points, but anybody who was at that game, would admit that it was never a ten-point game.
“We had five goal-scoring opportunities in the first 30 minutes, and we had a dubious square ball disallowed that would have put us five up in the first half.”
