Rowland: 'No reason we can't stay in the Super League'
By Stuart Tynan
Glenhest Rovers captain Chris Rowland is targeting a minimum of survival in Mayo's top flight ahead of the Super League season commencing in a few weeks' time.
Before that, their senior side is back in action this weekend as they take on Ballyheane in the opening round of the Calor Gas Super Cup, and the captain is looking forward to getting things kicked off.
“Like any other season for us, we know what we're going into. We've been sort of a yo-yo club with the Super League the last few years. It's nothing new to the lads,” Rowland told The Connaught Telegraph.
“Preparations are well underway. There is a number of fresh faces in our squad that played Under 18 or Under 17 last year so they're coming into our senior/Under 21 panel. We're using our Under 21s as a bit of springboard for the senior team and both squads are training together.”
In addition to being captain of the senior side, Rowland is also joint-manager of the club's Under 21 side. It might be a strange feeling to be a teammate one game and joint-manager the next, but he sees no major issue with it.
“Probably isn't, in a small club. Might be with a bigger club. A lot of them have been in and around the senior team the last one of two years. There used to being there and having the craic with the senior lads.”
The addition of the Under 21 League will be ever more beneficial for a club with so many young players, but there is concern on Rowland's part that going from no action with the lockdown to so many games with the Under 21 League, Super Cup and Super League, injuries will be the 'biggest fear'.
“Going from zero to 100. You see it with the amount of injuries picked up at inter-county Gaelic over the past few weeks.
“One thing I noticed during the opening Under 21 league game with Claremorris, I thought it was at a higher tempo than a Super League game. Maybe that's me looking from the outside in.
“It definitely will benefit them but at the same time, it brings its own constraints. Potentially, they have six games in two and a half weeks. It's a lot of game time and that's before if they are playing Gaelic or hurling or anything else.”
During the lockdown, as well the the team having training plans through the club's WhatsApp group, they held a Darkness Into Light event in aid of Pieta House. Instead of the traditional walk into sunrise, they did a 12-hour relay, pairing into twos or threes and taking an hour for each leg, raising almost €3,000 for the charity.
“It brought the lads together. You mightn't have seen some of the lads in weeks or months with Covid. It was a great way to regroup.”
FORTRESS
Key to their survival in the Super League will be how strong they are at their home ground at The Strand. It has gained notoriety for being a tough place for any Mayo side playing the 'Hest.
“It's not the most luxurious place for a big club to come to!” Rowland laughed. “We're so used it, training there ever since we're were young. We normally pull results out of the bag there or it's definitely a very close game. It's always been known as a bit of a fortress for us.”
Glenhest were bottom of the Super League last year before the cessation, having picked up only one win in their eight games they played. However, their skipper believes they were 'quite unlucky' not to get more, with some very spirited showings in defeats to Manulla, Westport United and Ballina Town, and believes they are more than capable of staying up.
“The teams that you probably would've pencilled in to beat like Ballyglass, we did very poorly against. But against teams where we were wrote off and never had a chance, like Westport and Ballina, we did very well. That's the nature of the game but we took great encouragement from it. If we can take that against teams around us. There is no reason we can stay in the division or push for mid-table or possibly more.”