With two games left in their Division Four National League campaign, the Oakleafers are still looking for their first win of 2024 after the Derry ladies have lost their last five games.
Even though the league table isn’t very aesthetically pleasing, there hasn’t been nothing but positivity in the Derry locker room. They were soundly beaten by Leitrim and Longford, but their other three games were encouraging.
In the first round, Damian McCaffrey’s team was defeated by Carlow by five points; in the second round, Limerick had an advantage of seven points; and in the fourth round, Wicklow narrowly prevailed.
“It’s been challenging. We weren’t given the opportunity to start the job until much later, so when the management team arrived, we really had no idea what we had,” Derry manager McCaffrey stated.
Our first meeting was on December 10th, so at that point all we were doing was forming a panel and a team. Since there weren’t many people in the beginning, our main goal was to assemble a panel before deciding what kind of team we could assemble from it.
“The top four or five Division Four teams are excellent and have excellent setups. It all comes down to how we wish to set up and what we take away from the games. It is what it is, and we have learned a great deal.
“We sat down and spoke with the girls after those couple of games, and they expressed satisfaction with their performances despite some of the losses. I am aware that the results were not available, and we really ought to have left that Wicklow game with at least a draw.
“To be honest, we were just as good as Carlow in our first game; we really put them to the test.” To be fair, most of the games have had strong performances; hopefully, this weekend will see another strong showing.
This coming weekend, all eyes will be on Kilkenny, where the Cats are currently sitting at the bottom of the table with zero points. Because they have a higher scoring average through five games, Derry is slightly ahead of their next opponents.
“I believe Kilkenny is in a similar situation as we are; they haven’t won yet,” McCaffrey continued. We’re going to try our best to nail the performance this coming weekend, and hopefully the outcome will follow suit. That would give the girls a tiny boost of confidence once more.
“We have thirty girls available for Sunday and they are fit and ready to go, but we have one or two short-term injuries.”
