Top four the aim for City of Derry in 2023

City of Derry vs. Cooke

Judges Road

Saturday, 2:30pm

Victory over Cooke today would leave City of Derry knocking at the door of the top four in the Kukri Championship Division One.

A difficult 2022 ended with a rampaging victory over neighbours Limavady last week as Richard McCarter’s team swept to a 43-0 victory, the second time in three months that they have put 40+ points past their rivals.

It leaves Derry in a relatively healthy position heading into the New Year, although there is still plenty of work to do for McCarter and his players who sit six points behind fourth placed Drome having played a game more.

Despite missing both Stephen Corr and Simon Logue, Derry dominated Limavady with four second half tries from David Brown (2), Ian Bratton and Davy Graham ending a difficult year on a high for everyone at the club.  

“I was a wee bit nervous going into the game because the preparation hadn’t been great, because of the time of the year and the few issues we had with illness and things,” McCarter admitted. “I was really pleasantly surprised. The result was obviously excellent, to score 40-off points and score six trys or whatever it was; but the performance by a few individuals was very impressive as well, especially up front where we were missing the likes of Stephen Corr, who was a massive loss. Others stepped up, which proved to be very important.”

Another pleasing aspect of last week’s victory was the patience that his team showed against a resolute opponent, especially in the first half.

“It took us a while to get going but once we stamped our authority on the game, it was just about having patience and having trust in our patterns and things like that,” McCarter continued. “We went in 17-0 at half time but the reality was that we had missed two or three big, big opportunities. Ian Bratton had a couple of chances and on another day he definitely scores. If we had gone in 20 or 30-0 up at half time it wouldn’t have flattered us and the game probably should have been out of sight by half time.”

Return

Both Corr and Logue are expected to return this weekend as Derry prepare for a much sterner opponent in Cooke, who currently sit in third place. Cooke were easy winners over Derry in their last meeting, but on the back of an improved run, a more confident and composed City of Derry are arguably in their best shape of the season heading into some big fixtures. McCarter doesn’t have to be told how big a win would be for his team’s top four prospects, which remains the ultimate aim at the start of 2023.

“Our ultimate aim is just to break into that top four, which I think we’re still on track for, but we have a couple of really tough games coming up over the next couple of weeks,” he admitted. “We have Cooke this weekend, then Ballyclare next weekend. It’s important that we regain our focus after a couple of weeks out and try and back up last week’s performance.”

McCarter also admits that the players owe the home fans a food performance after some stressful days at Judges Road since the new season started.

“We obviously always try to back ourselves at home but we haven’t really been that successful at home this season to be truthful,” he added. “We know that Cooke will cause us a lot of problems. They gave us a good stuffing up in Belfast to be brutally honest about it, so we know the threat that they’ll pose and it’s important that we are at our best if we want to win the game.”