Cathal Campbell pleased with way St Naul’s got positive result against Downings

While in the end it was not enough to lift them out of the relegation zone, there was a little more positivity around Gerald Gallagher Memorial Park, Mountcharles on Saturday evening after the home side recorded their first championship win of the season when defeating Downings by a point in the final round.

The Parish of Inver side had another tough season in the senior championship with more tough draws and suffering a lot of injuries.

But they put adversity to one side to put together their best performances of the year with county goalkeeper Gavin Mulreany instrumental in helping them to the win.

Manager, Cathal Campbell, was happy that at long last there was something to build on and is hopeful that the win will give his side much needed confidence going forward.

“It was all about getting the result. The season we’ve had, not to go into that in any great depth, but tonight was about getting the result and we got it.

“And the effort that the boys put in got us that. So I’m very happy with that.”

In some ways the side played with more confidence because they knew that it was a long shot to get out of the relegation battle and Campbell agreed that they had taken the shackles off.

“Yeah, it helps. The way the boys played tonight gives you heart.”

Downings were short their big Meath panellist midfielder Cian McBride but as against that St Naul’s were missing a number of players including their latest injury casualty Kyle Campbell, who picked up an ACL injury in round three against St Eunan’s. As Cathal Campbell replied:

“Tell us about it.  But you can’t make excuses. You have to go out and play the game with everybody that you have got and look, it will give us, if we are in a relegation battle, it will give us heart going into that.

“The boys need to play with the shackles off and with a wee bit more confidence.”

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He was happy with the way his side took their scores with Joe Campbell, Declan Duignan and Gavin Mulreany hitting some good two pointers.

“Stephen Griffin, who was not playing up until an hour before the match, he’s just coming back from a pretty serious injury; it was great to have him on the pitch for his leadership. And Gavin (Mulreany) came up and kicked a few.

“Brendan (McCole) stepped up and did a good marking job on (Johnny) McGroddy. I think he has been the highest scorer in the championship up to this game.

“Look, I’ll be happy with the result but we have to go and build on it. We will go to training on Tuesday  night much more positively; a win always makes training on a Tuesday night easier.”