History will be made at Haslett Park, the home of Carrickfergus side Barn United, on Saturday, as Castlewellan Town play the club’s first ever game in intermediate football.
New manager Glynn Robinson, although admitting the Gaelic season has had an impact on pre-season preparations, says his squad have given him plenty to think about in terms of the starting line-up ahead of the season opener.
“I’ve had the opportunity to pretty much see my whole squad.
“The only problem is I haven’t been able to see the full squad altogether at the same time, but I knew coming into the job that Gaelic would have an impact on that and I’m not going to walk in and ask players to choose between the two.
“The players are physically fit, those who haven’t been playing have been coming down and training regularly. I’ve got a very good squad of 18 or 21 players there.
“The nice thing is that every player has given me something to think about. It’s not just cut and dry, where players are walking in and saying: ‘Well I’ll play every week’.
“Everybody will have to put their head down, work hard, do everything that’s asked of them and make it very hard for me to drop them.”
In addition to the signings of Shane Kearney and Declan Allister, Sean Dornan has returned from injury. Ruairi Croskery will once again act as the talisman for Town, and will be hoping if possible to improve on his remarkable 33-goal tally in Division 2A last season.
Robinson has experience of managing in intermediate football from his time with Ballynahinch United and is under no illusions as to how tough a challenge Division 1C will be.
“Dundonald have signed a lot of players and there’s four or five teams based in East Belfast.
“Those teams have a bigger pool of players to pick from, so I’m not going to turn around and say I fancy ourselves for the league.”
What the gaffer has promised at Corrigan Park, however, is commitment and attitude from his team.
“I’m optimistic about what the team can go on and achieve. They’ll adopt the fundamentals in every game they go into, the commitment and attitude levels will be through the roof.
“If we’re outplayed and we’re beaten, fair enough, but we’ll never be outworked. That mentality is already there from the players, I just need to tap into it and we’ll go from there,” he added.
Read the full report in the current issue which includes team analysis of Drumaness Mills, Dromara Village and Ballynahinch Olympic, Ballynahinch United, and Newcastle Town.