Castlebar Celtic looking to bounce back after ‘disappointing’ spell
IT is difficult to see Castlebar Celtic's 2021 Super League season as anything apart from a major disappointment on the surface of things.
Having gone in still as defending champions (the 2020 season was curtailed due to Covid), their second attempt at a title defence got off to a terrible start with a heavy defeat to Claremorris, which saw then-manager Michael McNicholas depart less than 48 hours later.
Coupled with a heavy injury list, it saw a lot of its young talents - many of whom were part of the club's Under 18 Quigley Cup triumph in 2019 – thrust into the red-hot firepit of Super League action.
Looking back on last year, Celtic skipper Ioseph O'Reilly said: "First half of last season, we lost a lot of players.
Jason Hunt was a massive loss, he didn’t play the whole second half of the season. I thought he’d win Player of the Year at one stage.
If we kept him, it might have been a different story. But he got injured so nothing you can do. It was a positive transition, but it was a strange season.
"Last year was a disappointing season, especially after being reigning champions.
It’s been a bit of a transition between this year and last year. Young names like Fionn Mahon coming through. He’s 16 and in TY. I’m probably the oldest at 32 and after that, it is 26.
"Last year, the experience will stand to them. It would have been their first year playing senior football so in one sense, it was good that they got that experience and hopefully it stands to them throughout this year."
He may now be the eldest member of Celtic's Super League squad, but O'Reilly is working as hard as ever to keep himself fit and fresh, especially when he sees at the level of quality of Celtic's young guns he's training alongside with.
"It makes me work that bit harder because I feel I need to. Personally, I love seeing youth coming through because down the road, when I’m coming to Celtic Park after I’ve stopped playing I want to see a successful team.
"Even guys who have gone away to play with an Airtricity team and come back, the standard is there. The quality of players, the belief is there and they’ve bought in to Stevie and Dec (Flynn) and working really hard in training."
NEW MANAGER
Now with Stevie Gavin back in the managerial hotseat once again, the Hoops can look ahead with optimism.
They are the only club from Mayo left in the Connaught Cup, and they will play Mervue Utd for a place in the semi-finals. But Gavin is looking no further than their opening Super League clash at Celtic Park against newly-promotted Straide & Foxford United.
"We’ve a good squad with experience in Ioseph and Colm Nevin. We’ve got younger lads like Luke Kelly, Fionn Mahon and Mark Rattigan. Diarmuid Ahern coming in from Limerick. If we gel together and work hard, we can do well," offered Gavin.
"Every team will be confident. We’ve put in plenty of work and there is belief. There is no big target. Our next game is at home to S&F and if we win that we’ll look to our next game, simple as that.
"Some managers or teams, they’ll have a plan of where they want to peak or how they want the season to go. The most important game is the next game in football.
"The old saying is you’re only as good as your last game but that’s not really true. Somebody jokingly once said to me you're only as good as your next game, which is true. We’ll see how we react to any setbacks and that’ll be crucial for this group.
"Of course we want to win but sport and life throws up challenges. It was a challenging season last year but we move on."