We asked for a commitment for January from the boys in what we knew would be a set of hard games, and the boys gave that commitment. Not perfect by any stretch, a draw and two wins, and for the Development team a loss and two wins. But both teams put in good performances against difficult opposition through the month. Edenderry particularly gave us a tough test and showed us if we switch off our concentration we will be punished. The boys did well to fight back twice to get points from that game, and showed a bit of character to do that.

We have had good numbers at training with new guys coming along and getting involved, and it’s good to see the “old” heads bringing the new guys with them. But ultimately none of this matters unless the season has something to show for it at the end.  So to keep this going we need to keep demanding of ourselves on the training pitch.

The tricky job away to Roscrea tested the depth of the squad with unavailability and injuries.  But two good performances made the road trip that much easier on the way home.

And their visit of Newbridge was going to be a step into the unknown after their good win against Cill Dara the week before.  But both teams stood up and put it really good performances. Not perfect, and we would be disappointed if they were, but still good performances. Newbridge asked questions of us and we had answers to some of it, but also left chances out there.

So going into the Cup we have done what was asked of us (also thanks to some results out of our hands) and given ourselves a right to play again in the second to last league game.  But that is all we have done.  We know March will bring two massively physical hard games against two of the other teams chasing for the same goal as us; so still a lot to focus on. Cill Dara is a massive mental and physical challenge and we are only looking at that as far as the league is concerned. We know the recent games with them have been really close and you have to earn everything when you play them, and we’re sure they will fancy the trip to us.

But we park that just to the side for a while, not out of thought, but just to the side. The Towns Cup is next up for a few weeks and we will keep working through what we have set up and try to keep looking to improve where we know we aren’t good enough.

We got good home support against Newbridge and hope to bring the same support into these Cup games for both teams.  All players will be pushing each other at training these weeks regardless of what team is featuring in the Cup at the weekend as we need to ask questions of each other to keep trying to improve. Because we know what we did yesterday won’t be good enough today.