Ardmore aim for all-island glory

Ardmore aim to make another piece of history when they take on Fairview Rangers AFC in the All-Island Presidents’ Junior Cup, this Saturday, at the Sligo Showgrounds (KO 2pm).

In April, Feidhlim O'Neill’s side defeated Enniskillen Town United, in the fonaCAB Craig Stanfield Irish Junior Cup, to set-up this weekend’s showdown against the Limerick men.

O’Neill admits his side are looking forward to the contest and he wants his squad to go and enjoy the day.

“Everyone is looking forward to Saturday,” stated the Ardmore gaffer.

“We’ve been working hard off the field and we’re going to go out and enjoy ourselves and obviously hopefully give a good account of ourselves.”

Ardmore have been able to keep the majority of their squad which secured that penalty shoot-out Irish Junior Cup success at Windsor Park and they’ve added former Institute midfielder Jake Morrow to their panel.

However O’Neill is delighted that there hasn’t been much to change in the dressing room and they’ve secured two league victories from their opening Premier Division fixtures, seeing off Strabane Reserves and Ballymac Celtic; with last season’s topscorer Jack Coyle also opening his goalscoring account, netting a brace against Ballymac, on Saturday.

“Look, we lost two or three players in the offseason, but we’ve brought one or two players in, but the nucleus of the squad is the same,” he added.

“More importantly the work ethic is still the same and so too is the togetherness, we’re happy enough with how things have gone so far this season.

“We’ve had two wins from our first two competitive games. We played two good teams and we produced two good performances, the performance levels were good, so we’re happy with where we’re at, going into the final.”

Fairview are 10 times FAI Junior Cup winners, they’ve secured eight Munster Junior Cups and have clinched the Premier Division title 15 times and O’Neill knows that Saturday’s opponents will go into the final full of confidence.

Ardmore now face Fairview Rangers for the All-Island President's Cup this weekend.

“Fairview are a very good team and they’ve won the last nine out of ten FAI Junior’s, they’re going a long time and they’ve a good pedigree of a team,” explained O’Neill.

“To be honest they have to be a good team to get to those levels, but we’re a good team and we’ll go out and give it a rattle and see what happens.”

Ardmore got off to the worst possible start in the Irish Junior Cup Final trailing 2-0, conceding after just 15 seconds and O’Neill hopes his players will have learned from that occasion.

“I’m telling the boys to just go out and enjoy yourselves, as it may never happen again,” he added. “We don’t want to get caught up in the occasions, we just want to make it just another game.

“The Irish Junior final we were probably shellshocked for the opening half an hour, the big occasion and we’re not going to make that mistake again, we’re going out with the mentality it’s a game of football, yes we’re going out to try and win, but as I said we just want to go out and enjoy ourselves.

“Hopefully that experience at Windsor Park will help the boys, but look to come from 2-0 down in your first senior final I think that showed the belief and the work-rate in the team.

“The boys know what they can do and they know that they can do it on the big stage, so hopefully they just go out cool and calm on Saturday and give a good account of ourselves.”

Just like April’s final, there's a big support making the trip to the Sligo Showgrounds from McCourt’s and throughout the North West.

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“Sligo’s pitch is a good big pitch and location wise it’s good for both teams,” confirmed O’Neill.

“There will be good support from Ardmore and throughout the North West and I’m sure there will be plenty of fans from Limerick also making the trip and hopefully it will be a great day all around.”