SAUL captain Rory Mullen has said that the consistency of performances in the second half of the campaign was the key to their success in Division Two this year.
Saul won the league title and promotion with a game left to play, but their win was made official on Friday past when they played their final game, a win over An Riocht.
They ended the campaign on top of Division Two, three points ahead of Downpatrick in a campaign that was a close-run affair.
Rory said, “I think in the second half of the league we went unbeaten. We pushed on from when Bryansford beat us (in May). From then we didn’t drop a point.”
Bryansford beat Saul in the middle of May, 2-15 to 1-9. But Saul would then go on a streak of 11 wins in a row. That was a huge run that allowed them to overhaul their rivals for the Division Two title; Bryansford and Downpatrick. Both of those teams had been fancied to win the league, but in the run in Saul beat both sides.
“We had some big results against Bryansford and Downpatrick,” Rory said.
“The league was tougher this year with teams like Longstone and Bryansford coming down (from Division One). You had Saval who were there or thereabouts. An Riocht came up and were challenging as well,” Rory added.
And he added that the significance of the win was big.
“To me and to the players promotion is bigger than championship, because we had to perform. They were more consistent results. It showed that we can compete consistently against teams.”
But he did say that the performance against Bryansford in May was a turning point.
“I don’t think that we could have played any worse than we did against Bryansford. In the first ten minutes they scored 1-4. We got off to a poor start. We were not ourselves.”
In the full report Rory goes on to explain the signifcance of the result against Downpatrick, and makes a suggestion about next season. Read it now in the current issue of the Mourne Observer, plus analysis from Dromara and Darragh Cross’s promotion as well as all the promoted and relegated teams from this season’s All County Football League.
