Grant content that Naomh Pádraig, Lifford are going in the right direction

After a first win in Division 3, Naomh Pádraig boss Donal Grant feels things are starting to move in the right direction for the club.

With Daniel McNulty stepping away as manager earlier this year due to other commitments, it left the club in a bit of an unknown spot.

But Donal Grant, along with Paul Lynch and some of the senior players at the club have stepped up to keep the ship steady.

“We’ve been going for a long time with the team, myself and Paul,” Grant said.

“He takes training during the week, then I’ll take it on a Friday, it mightn’t be ideal but we know that.

“The boys are putting in the effort there themselves and I’m on the line then at the weekend.

“All the senior players are chipping in and I’m taking their advice because I can’t do it on my own as I’m away during the week.

“So myself and four or five of the senior players will take it for the rest of the year and if that’s what it takes then so be it.”

And the rewards were reaped on Saturday with a first win over Na Rossa in Páirc MacDiarmada.

A 2-15 to 2-10 win, in which Lifford went seven ahead before being pegged back to a point, got them over the line.

“There were flashes of Donegal and Armagh in that game.

“But it’s nothing more than these boys deserve getting this win, they’re putting in the efforts on Wednesday and Friday nights and numbers have picked up at training over the last few weeks.

“You can see for yourself that there is a brilliant blend of experience down the middle and then youth out wide. We have runners and we used them well.

“If we were to be critical, we gave away two soft goals.

“Then we hit the post twice and missed a one-on-one with the goalkeeper but the boys kept chipping away with the scores and that will hopefully instill a bit of confidence in them moving forward.

“It is a massive relief to get the first win and it was against a good team too, and it’s a team not many people would give us a chance People would look at ourselves, Robert Emmets, Pettigo and we’re not expected to win games like this but it was fully deserved and our first half performance was as good as I’ve seen down here in years.”

Martin Mongan has returned to Strabane Sigersons while Lifford are without the injured Brian Breslin and Conor Breslin at the moment.

But goals from the pacey and youthful pair of Oran Gallen and Kyle Martin were vital to the win and Grant is happy with that age profile in the squad at the moment.

“We have another two or three injuries and we’re down to the bare bones, when you’re missing the likes of Brian, that’s about five or six points a game so the boys have to step up and they did, Seamus (Breslin) and Kyle kicked some nice two pointers.

“It’s Kyle’s first year, he was here last year but he didn’t play much and Matthew (Doherty) is in his first year, Eoin Doherty is playing midfield and he’s 18 years of age.

“People used to say we were an old team and we have no youth coming through but we probably have an average age of 25 so we’re getting there.”

A trip to Ballintra to face a promotion-chasing Naomh Bríd side is up next for Lifford but Grant is hoping they can keep the confidence high after getting that first win.

“We’re going down there but that’s what we want, to play the better teams and stand up to them, maybe we can surprise them like we did with Na Rossa.

“If that win doesn’t kick the confidence on then I don’t know what will, but we need to bring this on to the next games.”