By Kevin Herron
Portglenone manager Barry Dillon insists he has a lot of trust in the ability of his players. The Ports came through Wednesday evening’s quarter-final replay with St Johns to book a semi-final meeting with Lamh Dhearg next weekend.
Derry native Dillon believes that his side are perhaps not shown respect in some quarters and is adamant that Wednesday’s victory is another step towards doing something about that.
“You have to trust the boys” said Dillon.
“They’ve got Matt Fitzpatrick and Paddy McBride – we’ve got Niall Delargy, Michael Donnelly, Niall McKeever, Dermot McAleese and a lot of other boys. We’ve talented footballers in Portglenone maybe they don’t get the respect they deserve in a lot of quarters – but we’re trying to do something about that now and tonight was a big step towards doing that”.
Dillon believes that its down to the players as to how further they progress in the Championship and believes that victory over Lamh Dhearg would be another massive scalp.
The Portglenone boss was also full of praise for the standard of Antrim football and praised the quality on show in the County.
“That’s all down to the fellas themselves – I was just saying to them” Dillon revealed.
“There’s many a team that get a big scalp here, there and everywhere but you have to back it up again. We’re under no illusions that Lamh Dhearg the next day are another big scalp again – if we’re going to try and get it. It doesn’t get any easier from this stage”.
“The standard of Antrim football, I have to say has been fantastic. I’m actually surprised how competitive it is from day one I’ve came in. There is a lot of quality, even the teams from the bottom of Division One are still giving you a real tough game. The standard is good – I don’t know why it isn’t translating from the pitch into County level but the standard of Antrim football is as good as anywhere else and Portgleone are just one of those teams in it, that are trying to do our best”.
Dillon admits he will have to assess any injuries before next weekend’s semi-final clash but feels that Wednesdays victory will have given them massive belief going forward.
“They’ve [Lamh Dhearg] seen us now sitting here and they’ve been prepared for us – we’re only thinking of them now” admits the Portglenone boss.
“We weren’t in a position to think about them before today but we have to get ourselves put together again and patched up. On the surface here tonight, we’ve boys knees that are cut open on that thing – it’s ridiculous from that end of things”.
“We’ll see how those things all pan out and how injuries pan out. It was a hard hitting affair again for two games in a row. St Johns put up a mighty tussle and its brilliant for our boys to come through that. It’s going to give us the belief going forward that our boys are made off the right stuff and we all know that round Portglenone they’re made of the right stuff”.
Wednesday evening’s venue wasn’t decided until Tuesday evening – having originally been penned down for a return to the scene of Sunday’s first clash in Ahoghill. Dillon wasn’t bothered personally bothered on the location switch but admits his club where unhappy with the ‘hassle’.
“I’d my own personal thoughts on that- I didn’t care where the game was” Dillon acknowledged.
“But from a club point of view, it was a lot of hassle. It’s a senior Championship and whenever we heard it was going to be a school 3G pitch; it was just mental. You just don’t get that anywhere else. It was a good enough wee venue and everything else. As a management you just have to get prepared for a game of football, that’s all I’m here to do- other boys sort out other things. If it had have been in the car-park, we’d have been in the car-park. That’s just the way it works out”.