Junior Cup test awaits City of Derry this weekend

Carrick vs. City of Derry

Junior Cup

Tomorrow, 2:30pm

City of Derry enter the Junior Cup for the first time this weekend arguably playing their best rugby in years.

Richard McCarter’s side began life in the Kukri Ulster Qualifying League sluggishly back in the autumn, but they ended it in style, winning seven of their last ten leagues games, with performances and scoring at their best level for quite some time. A win at CIYMS on the last day of the league season secured a fifth-place finish and qualification for the end of season competition, which is very much a reward for their efforts for everyone at Judges Road.

“We want to draw a line under the league campaign and start this one fresh, but we feel that if we can take the form of the league campaign into this we have a chance of doing well in it,” McCarter said. “We want to treat this as a new competition but use that momentum we’ve bult up.”

It has required both determination and a lot of patience for McCarter and his team to get to this level of performance, and while the Head Coach already has one eye on next season, he is hoping that his team can now do themselves justice in the Junior Cup, starting away at Carrick on Saturday.

“I was saying to the boys recently that for the first time, not just in weeks or months, but probably in seasons, that we have actually been playing with confidence,” he admitted.

“Even in the last game of the season away at CIYMS, we were losing 17-5 five or ten minutes into the second half. But there was no panic at all amongst the players or us as coaches either to be fair. We knew that if we got into our rhythm we would create opportunities and it was just about taking them and then we ended up scoring 30 unanswered points within the space of half an hour. We do have confidence at the minute and it’s important that we ride the crest of that wave.”

There has been a notable change in mood at Judges Road as a result and be it a dominant performance over Grosvenor at home or the comeback victory at CIYMS, the change in attitude at the club is inescapable.

 “I said a few times that at the start of the season that we were a bit demotivated after being relegated,” McCarter continued. “We were going into a new campaign and we didn’t really know how it was going to go in terms of our opposition and our expectations. A couple of bad defeats refocused us as well so once we found our rhythm and accepted that this is where we were at, we started to enjoy the rugby. Then, obviously enjoying it brings results and results brings confidence and momentum and things like that. We won seven of our last ten matches of the season which is a really great effort.”

New chapter

The Junior Cup will be a new chapter for City of Derry who play away at Carrick and Ballymena 2nds before hosting Ballynahinch 2nds at home in the final group game. What lies beyond that remains to be seen, but McCarter is already hard at work trying to secure the club’s best players to City of Derry for next season. The hard work never stops.

“We played Carrick twice there in our league but we have never played Ballymena or Ballynahinch seconds, so we really don’t know what to expect from them, but that’s maybe not a bad thing because we’ll just concentrate on our won game and try and play well and see how we get on,” he said.

“We have minimum three matches to play and we want to advance in this competition but we are already thinking about next year and trying to make sure we don’t lose any players and see who we want to bring in.

“In the amateur game it’s very difficult because until that transfer deadline closes, you don’t know what will happen or what your players are being told by other clubs. It’s a stressful time for us but if we can tie down lads and the sooner the better it will be a good release for us.”