Manager Paddy Curry believes if the team can stay fit, they have a great chance of returning to Division Three.
Dundrum were relegated to Division Four last year during a season when they were missing a variety of players due to holidays and injuries. However, they had a fully fit squad for their win against Tullylish last week, and that bodes well for the future.
Manager Paddy Curry told the Mourne Observer: “We are looking to keep everyone fit. We had 22 the other night – that is the biggest panel we have had.”
The squad is much the same as it was last year. Rochelle Connolly and Chloe Trainor missed much of last year but are back this year. Joanna Boden, Adele McGrattan, and Meabh Coughlan were injured at various points during the season but are all back.
Paddy said that the team has a plan to try and keep the injuries to a minimum.
“A lot of that is down to luck. But we have to control what we can: recovering well, doing our strength and conditioning, and being sensible with our training and our match load. I don’t think we did anything poorly last year. We just have to try to keep everyone fit and fresh.”
If they can do that, then promotion is a real possibility. Paddy added: “Like any team that goes down, you would be hoping to go back up again. That is easier said than done, but that is our goal. It is difficult to go back up. There are no easy games and we are going into the unknown in a lot of the games. We have not played a lot of these teams before.”
Playing teams that they are unfamiliar with is a challenge.
“You try what you can find out about teams. But the main thing is to prepare yourselves. If you can look after your own performance, that is probably the most important thing.”
But they made the right start last week with a comfortable win over Tullylish away, 11-13 to 2-5.
Paddy said, “The first league game there is always a bit of nerves, so it was good to get off to a winning start. The positive was that a lot of young girls got a bit of game time. They are a good, committed group of players and we want to give the girls plenty of football throughout the year.”
One of the big takeaways for Paddy, and his assistant Martin Coughlan, was the fitness that the team showed in their first win.
“I thought our conditioning was very good. To be fair to the girls, we have not had a lot of time on the pitch in preseason, but we did a lot of training off the pitch and that involved fitness work. A lot of the panel did their own fitness work. I thought for our first game we looked well-conditioned. That was the big thing that I took away from the game.”
In the full story read what Paddy had to say about their next opponents, St John Bosco.
