Naomh Padraig’s young guns offer reasons for optimism

There was certainly more than enough in his team’s performance on Sunday to give Daniel McCauley reasons to be hopeful as his team enters a crucial stage of their season.

McCauley and Kevin Lynch are joint managers of a Naomh Padraig, Muff side who despite their youth, are enjoying a good campaign.

They face a play-off with Na Rossa for promotion from Division Four of the All County League when the championship comes to an end - and no matter what happens between now and then, McCauley insists promotion remains their target.

“We’re really happy with how we are going this year,” he said. “We’re a young side. We've had great commitment all season. At the start of the year, our target was to get out of Division Four. So our aim is still to win this play-off.”

McCauley was speaking after he watched his team go down by five points at Letterkenny Gaels in their second game in Group B of the Junior Championship. Naomh Padraig had opened with a home win over Pettigo, but on Sunday, knew that Division Three side Gaels would provide a sterner challenge.

Still, the young Naomh Padraig team played well, and McCauley feels that on another day, they could have sneaked a win. A decision to award the home side a penalty in the first half was undoubtedly one of the big talking points of the match. The Naomh Padraig joint manager insisted his team could easily have been awarded a penalty of their own for a similar tackle on Caolan McColgan.

“I asked the referee about it afterwards,” he said. “Our No. 13 was fouled in almost the exact same way, so if he gave the penalty at one end, he had to give it at the other. That’s just my view on it.”

Conor McBrearty, scorer of the Letterkenny Gaels penalty, is tracked by Naomh Padraig pair Joseph McCauley (No. 10) and Caolan Harkin (No. 6)

McCauley added: “On another day it could have gone our way. I thought we were the better team in the second half. But we just didn’t work the scores well enough, we had far too many wides.

“At times we panicked. They got a black card, but we had chances to take it back to three, and it would have been a different game.  

“Until the penalty, I thought we were well in this game. But the penalty knocked the stuffing out of our boys for the rest of the first half.

“Letterkenny Gaels are flying. They are a very good side, I’d have them as favourites for the championship.

“The mentality of our boys and the effort and commitment was 100%. We looked for a performance out of them and we definitely got it.”

McCauley insisted Naomh Padraig are going the right way at present. The young players that have come into the squad, he said, have given everyone a lift. 

On Sunday, only two players in the starting 15 were over the age of 23. Eleven players are still under 21.

The team included Drew McKinney at midfield. He was county minor captain two years ago and really impressed in Letterkenny. Goalkeeper Oran McCauley, at only 17, was another to catch the eye.

“For us, the championship is a case of taking it game by game and we’ll see where that takes us,” McCauley said, adding that the big prize at the end of this season remains promotion back into Division Three.