Longford Senior Men’s Teams are back in action in the Leinster League this Sunday.  As regards the league there are five matches remaining.  The good news is that all is still to play for.  The J1 team are now most probably competing for second place as Monkstown are currently thirteen points clear of Longford at the top.  However, second place still has the big prize of a play off for promotion to Division 1A.  However, Longford are in an almighty scrap for second place with Carlow and Tullow.  All of Longford’s last five matches now take on knock out rugby status starting this Sunday with a tough trip to Carlow, one of the sides in the promotion shake up with Longford.  It will take Longford’s best performance of the season so far to come way from Oak Park with a win and the Senior Men will be training hard until then with that match in mind.

As regards the J2 XV, they have had a great season and have won every match to date.  They sit on top, three points clear, with a game in hand over all the other sides.  Carlow are also one of the J2 Men’s main rivals but in this case for honour of being League winners.  So overall the trip to Oak Park is a big one for both sides.

Carlow Preview from Longford RFC Senior Men’s Head Coach Glenn Baskett

“So we continued this week to prep for Sunday on the road. There’s no running from the reward in this one, both teams have their own motivations. We were schooled here last season, and we know they are well coached, well drilled and extremely difficult to break down, you earn every point you get. Personally, there’s a lot of motivation in this one, but you’ve gotta park that emotion from our last visit here and focus on getting our game right. We have been good in patches this season, but only in patches so we are looking at the why there. But we sat down as a group and have been pretty honest and the boys are looking forward to the week, us coaches are up for it and are enjoying hitting reset and going again after Xmas. The good thing for me is no one is looking past Sunday, it is Sunday on the road and nothing more.”