Action from Faughs senior hurling clash with Castleknock.
Photo by Rory Barker
Faughs senior hurlers show a lot of character
Faughs GAA have extended their winning run in the championship after a close victory against Castleknock last Saturday where they emerged on the right end of a 0-24 to 1-23 scoreline.
After beating Naomh Mearnog in the first game of the championship Faughs now sit on top of the table in group 2 of the Senior 2 Championship.
Manager Ryan O’Dwyer commented on the performance of his players after the game.
“Look Castleknock are full of confidence, they won promotion from Division 2 and came out in their first championship game against Thomas Davis and won.
‘They are full of confidence coming into the game and were winning for most of it. We showed a lot of character from our lads.”
“I suppose the week before against Mearnog everyone was saying that we should have beat them easily but we didn’t.
‘They made it very difficult. I think they are better than they think they are themselves and they showed that last week against us. We just barely got over the line with two points. Same thing with Castleknock. It was certainly squeaky bum time by the end.”
“We were favourites on paper but we never listen to those titles or that kind of talk, we just focus on what the game is ahead of us.
‘I never look at results to be honest with you and very rarely in the dressing room are results talked about.
‘It’s the performance.. If you can perform most of the time you win the game.
‘That’s what we focus on and that’s what we’ll look after. Did we play to the best of our ability against Mearnog? I don’t think so but we got over the line.
#Did we play to the best of our ability against Castleknock? We showed glimpses of it. I think neither team put a full sixty minutes together.”
Indeed, Faughs had seen themselves trailing behind in both matches before managing to pull themselves back into the game in the last three minutes or so in both matches. O’Dwyer commented on a few of the standout performers so far for Faughs.
“For me, Joe Kenny, our captain, has been the standout player. He’s by far the most outstanding player.
‘Conor ‘Shiner’ Brennan has been an outstanding player as well. If you had to put two lads on a pedestal they’d be two players from my point of view.”
Other strong performers include Ronan Hennessy, Colm Leahy, Liam Mostyn, Scott McConnell and Conor O’Shea whose experience managed to grab Faughs a goal at a crucial time against Naomh Mearnog.
The next trip out for Faughs is against rivals Thomas Davis in a few weeks time when they travel to Kiltipper on August 16. O’Dwyer plans on allowing his players to recuperate during the break.
“I’ll tell you straight out, we’re taking a week off this week.
‘Last year we’d a few weeks break between our second game and our third game and went training and I don’t think it done us any favours if anything it set us back.
‘I suppose the beauty about Dublin GAA is they set out the fixtures well in advance. We saw there’s a three week break so we’re calling this our holiday week. We’re not training this week at all and back at it next Monday in the gym.”
“We’re just thinking of the next game, the Thomas Davis game. We’re taking each game as it comes.”
