City of Derry to host unbeaten Clogher Valley yet again

City of Derry vs. Clogher Valley

Judges Road

Saturday, 2:30pm

For the second time in just three weeks, City of Derry get the chance to inflict a first defeat of any kind on Clogher Valley this season.

The Championship One leaders came to Judges Road on November 26 as big favourites for a Towns Cup game that proved to be anything but straightforward. Derry led 10-5 that day at half time and were right in the game, but, showing just why they sit top of the league this term, Clogher Valley fought back and edged out a 28-22 victory.

Despite the defeat, Derry Coach Richard McCarter was more than happy with his players, and he is hoping they can go one better this time around.

“We have played them twice and we know what we have to do to beat them, but the difficult part is being able to sustain that for 80 minutes,” he said. “We played well for 45-50 minutes in the away league game and they blew us away in the last quarter.

“Then we played well for maybe 60 of the 80 a few weeks back and lost, so we know it has to be a full 80-minute performance and that’s the tough part when they’re fit, they’re relentless and they are flying in terms of their confidence because they haven’t been beaten in any competition so it’s a massive task but it’s one we’re really relishing.”

City of Derry go into this game in the best form of not only the season, but perhaps in a few years. Victory at Carrickfergus at the weekend made it four wins in the last five league games and things are certainly looking up after a difficult 2022.

“It was more about putting in a more committed performance than we did in the home game against them, and we definitely got that,” McCarter reflected. “That’s three games in a row now since that break where we’ve definitely looked hungrier. They had the better of the opening quarter but the longer the game went on, the more we came into it and we started to assert a bit of dominance. It was really pleasing to not just win the game, but we made it quite comfortable in the end for the last 10-15 minutes.”

Motivated

After relegation from All-Ireland rugby and a difficult adjustment period in a new league this season, things seem to be settling down at last, with McCarter noticing a change in mindset in his players.

“I would say so,” he continued. “If we take that Carrick home game out of it or even if we had won that, things would be looking quite good for us. I have just sensed a change in attitude over the last few weeks and that’s really important now coming into this important period of the season where we don’t really have any time off and the games are coming thick and fast. Especially with such a big game this weekend, we need the boys to be feeling good and hopefully they are.”

Even if they fall short against a powerful team this weekend, McCarter is more than content with the way things are going at present. The worst now seems to be behind the team.

“It may have been a wee bit of a hangover after the relegation and not really knowing what to expect despite drumming it into the boys’ heads that it would be a tough league this year,” he said. “I think that’s now started to sink in. It’s not even about going out and scoring heaps of tries every week, it’s just about getting the job done nearly and getting the victory. We are starting to score a few tries and we’re defending a lot better than we have done and things are ticking along quite nicely at the minute, but obviously things can change fairly quickly.”