Templeogue Synge Street squeak in

TEMPLEOGUE Synge Street kicked off their Junior Championship campaign with a victory in the Junior F division.

The team played Ballinteer St Johns last Wednesday and managed to squeak out a one-point win with a final scorecard of 2-09 to 2-08.

Manager Colin Dunleavy spoke about the challenges of the game and managing teams throughout the Junior championship.

“It was a great game to be fair. It was very tit-for-tat the whole game to be honest. Junior Championship in the summertime now is very hard to get a good stable team. People are coming and going from week to week.

‘We’re two similar clubs like that, us and John’s Ballinteer. We both have juvenile teams and we’re probably pulling minors from them up and down week to week, so you’re always in a little bit of a state of flux.”

“What you’re really trying to do is get a core of seven to eight senior players who are on a typical adult schedule of two weeks annual leave over the summer.

‘Currently with a club like Templeogue and others I’m sure, we’re just pulling and dragging along.

‘We have probably too many players for two teams but not as many for three teams.

‘The consequence of that is your playing young minor players or young adults who are going away on a J1 or inter-railing whatever it is.

‘You’ve got different players week to week more than likely, so you’re trying to establish seven to eight adult players who know the patterns of play you’re trying to work towards.”

Templeogue play Naomh Olaf on Wednesday evening and Dunleavy predicts it will be a similar problem facing him ahead of that game.

“There’ll probably be four or five, so about a third of the team will be different. I feel that they might have a slight edge from having a more established squad.

‘At least that’s my impressions from looking at them playing the past year. They didn’t seem to have many young faces in there, it seemed like more of a mid 20s type of player.”

Dunleavy spoke about the championship and league campaigns of the team so far and made it clear which he values more.

“ I know a lot of focus and energy goes into the championship for me it’s just built so much on luck.

‘I actually prefer a better league performance because I think it reflects more of how you were throughout the year.

‘It depends on if the planets align for you and everyone is available.

‘The league is much better for me because it reflects how your whole year was more accurately.

‘The championship is a bit of a lottery, particularly a summer championship when you have people away. Good performance in the championship and I’ll be happy enough.

‘Our expectation at the start of the year in the league was to not be in the relegation zone come the end of the year and we are in the top three now so we have very comfortably achieved that.”

The Templeogue team in the Junior N division will also play on Wednesday evening against Round Towers Clondalkin at Monastery Road.

They won their first game decisively with a massive 5-12 to 1-04 scoreline against Erins Isle in Bushy Park last week.