Gary Reynolds delighted to see Carrigallen's grit prevail against Aughnasheelin

In a game best described as topsy-turvy, it was old fashioned grit and fight that saw Carrigallen across the line against Aughnasheelin in Friday’s Smith Monumentals IFC clash according to Gary Reynolds after a hard fought 0-11 to 1-7 victory in Aughnasheelin.

Carrigallen liberally mixed the good and the bad in their victory and Gary was well aware of the significance of the victory: “I’ll tell you what we’re happy with - as long as I’m playing, we were coming out on the wrong side of those results. When teams step up against us and there is a bit of fight and a bit of grit, we know that other teams will say that Carrigallen will roll over but what I’m delighted about today is that we didn’t roll over.

“We didn’t roll over against Allen Gaels, we were four points down in the second half and kicked four in a row to draw the game, should have won it in the end and the week before, Ballinaglera went two or three ahead of us. We need to try and stop that happening because some day, we won’t be able to come back. But I’m delighted that we have the habit of coming back when we’re dead and buried because we haven’t over the last six or eight years.”

Friday’s game was everything Gary expected and you could sense the respect the former Leitrim captain has for Aughnasheelin: “It is never easy up here - you love coming to report on games here and we love coming to play games here. Coming here about an hour beforehand, you could see the heads were down a bit, lads thinking we haven’t done well here the last few years. 

“We didn’t play to our potential in the first half and truth be told, we didn’t in the second half either but if we’re going to go further in the championship this year, we’re probably happier that we didn’t come up here and win by six or seven or eight points.”

SIX LEITRIM CLUBS BATTLE FOR FOUR SPOTS IN SMITH MONUMENTALS IFC

That respect may have hindered Carrigallen in the first half: “Aughnasheelin the last couple of years have lost a lot of players but they still have the fight in them and at the end of the day, a lot of those lads have an Intermediate championship medal in them from two years ago.

“We tried to show them that bit of respect but if I’m being honest, we probably showed them too much in the first half. An awful lot of wides, first half we were playing against the breeze - probably didn’t look like it from the wing but on the pitch, it was a gale force breeze in our eyes and we missed three goal chances. 

“They weren’t just goal chances, they were one v ones and that has been a problem for us in the last few games against Ballinaglera and Allen Gaels. We had 11 wides in the first half against Allen Gaels, the same here tonight so we know if we tidy up our shooting, we know we’re probably up there, we’ve a chance of going further in the competition but it wasn’t there in the first half.”

Gary would also like to see Carrigallen kill off games when they have a chance: “This is the problem - we went three up, had a goal chance to go six up and we didn’t kill the game so between misses when we’re ahead and misses when we’re level, this is a major problem but there is a young group there.”

But it is that very youth that is keeping Gary and a few of his teammates hanging around as he sees a bright future for the club: “The reason I am still hanging around playing is because there is a really good young group there - the likes of Eoin, Danny Lyons, Derek Reilly are still the spine of the team, Barry Dolan but we’re just trying to push on. I feel if we lose that bit of experience, it might put us back a couple of years.

“We’re trying to push on and that is what I’m most happy about today is that the young lads stood up today. We gritted our teeth, stood in there - it is a new era for us, we’re trying to get a lot of good things done, on and off the pitch, in Carrigallen and I know to the naked eye, Division 1 didn’t go well for us but what a lot of people didn’t know, we were genuinely missing seven or eight first team players for most of that League. 

TREBLE WORLD WALL BALL GLORY FOR FENAGH'S KANE SISTERS

“We still probably would have come out with a lot of those beatings because they were heavy but you can’t go in there as an Intermediate club, Junior two years ago, and compete with so many missing.”

As for the rest of the campaign, Gary is very positive: “We’re happy with the way things are trending but there is an awful lot to be cleaned up, we have two weeks now to do that. It has been three intense weeks and the last five weeks of the League, we played five weeks in a row in Senior, Division 1 teams, so it is very taxing on the body, especially mine at my age with the mileage that I have on the clock so delighted to get the break but we have work to do.”